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,C3S 


A    NARROW   AX 

IN  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM 


y  BY 
REV.  CHARLES  CAVERNO,  A.  M.  LL.  D. 


Mutabo  pro  causa. 


CHICAGO 
CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 
56  Fifth  Avenue 
1897 


Copyright,  1896 
By  Charles  Caverno. 


PREFACE. 

We  did  a  deal  of  work  in  the  old  barn  floor 
on  cold  winter  days — made  nearly  all  the  tools 
used  in  carrying  on  a  farm  whose  working  power 
was  represented  by  four  or  six  oxen — carts, 
sleds,  drags,  harrows.  Sometimes  we  got  out 
the  frame  of  a  new  house  or  barn  or  shed.  A 
log  was  rolled  into  the  floor,  or  cut  in  on  skids 
with  pry  or  crowbar,  blocked  up  and  trigged. 
Then  the  chalk  line  was  snapped  along  the  top 
on  the  two  sides,  and  a  man  mounted  the  log  to 
cut  in,  along  at  intervals,  with  a  narrow  ax,  to 
the  chalk  line.  That  done,  the  outside  to  the 
depth  of  the  cuttings  was  chipped  off,  and  the 
log  began  to  take  the  square  shape  for  further 
work  to  the  end  designed. 

Many  serviceable  farm  implements  have  been 
made  with  no  tools  but  a  narrow  ax,  an  auger, 
chisel  and  mallet — implements  by  which  the 
struggle  for  existence  was  successfully  carried 
on,  a  family  fed,  clothed,  schooled,  and  perhaps 
a  boy  sent  to  college. 

Whereto  this  parable? 

The  following  pages  are  analogous, in  Biblical 
study  and  criticism,  to  the  processes  of  the  old 
barn  floor.  They  are  a  thing  of  narrow  axes, 
cross-cut  saws,  chalk  lines,  mallets   and  chisels. 


4  PREFACE 

So  far  as  the  discussions  are  critical    they  may 
be  considered  as    evolutions  of  the  narrow  ax. 

But  why  ask  any  one  to  read  the  result  of 
work  so  crude?  Well,  as  in  the  former  case,  a 
living  may  be  got  with  coarse  tools — and  a  living 
means  a  good  deal  here  as  well  as  there.  I  have 
had  to  get  my  living  {sfiritualiter  diciiur)  out  of 
the  ground  herein  tilled, b}'  the  use  of  such  tools 
as  came  to  hand.  I  have  done  it  (again  spirit- 
ualiter  dicihcr)  with  a  fair  result  of  comfort  to 
myself — so  I  could  sleep  nights  after  my  day's 
work  was  done. 

Much  herein  was  thought  out  and  wrought 
out  years  ago.  I  have  corrected  from  time  to 
time  as  I  have  had  occasion  for  use.  That  proc- 
ess of  correction  would  probably  go  on  with- 
out limit.  But  as  the  problems  stand  before  my 
mind  at  this  date,  I  am  reasonably  satisfied  with 
the  conclusions  herein  set  forth. 

My  work  will  be  of  no  service  to  experts  in 
Biblical  criticism,  but  it  may  be  helpful  to 
some  who  may  wish  to  work  a  little  further 
along  than  they  are  toward  the  solution  of  prob- 
lems that  tax  all  minds. 

The  most  I  wish  to  assert  in  my  justification, 
is,  that  I  think  somewhere  in  the  direction  in 
which  I  go,  will  results,  fairly  restful,  be  found. 

C.     Caverno. 
Boulder  i  Colorado ^  i8g6. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER.  PAGE 

I.  The  Revelation,  No.  1 9 

II.  The  Revelation,  No.  II 32 

III.  Job... 57 

IV.  Jonah 76 

V.   Isaiah 93 

VI.   Imprecatory    Psalms 130 

VII.   A  Missing  Chapter  in  the  Life 

OF  St.  Paul 150 

VIII.   Biographical     History     from 

Abraham  to  Christ 173 

IX.   History,  Tribal  and  Synthetic  198 

X.  Philosophical    History 232 

XI.   The  Story  of  Eden  and  the  Par- 
able OF  the  Prodigal  Son  255 

XII.  Psalms  not  Imprecatory 279 

Index 299 


A  NARROW   AX  IN   BIBLICAL 

CRITICISM. 

L 

THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTERS  I. -XI. 

I  MARVEL  that  the  Revelation  is  not  a  more 
popular  book  than  it  is, that  is,that  it  is  not  in  more 
familiar  use  both  for  moral  and  literary  purposes, 
for  spiritual  comfort  and  intellectual  quickening. 
Not  even  all  the  darkness  that  has  been  shed 
upon  it  by  the  innumerable  multitude,  from 
saints  to  cranks,  birds  of  dole  and  omen,  who 
have  acted  as  commentators  upon  and  interpret- 
ers of  it,  ought  to  have  consigned  it  to  the  ob- 
scurity in  which  it  seems  to  be. 

It  ought  to  be  a  book  of  vision,  of  inspiration 
and  comfort  to  the  Christian,  and  it  ought  to 
rank  as  a  masterpiece  in  literature.  Yet  am  I 
mistaken  in  the  assertion  that  it  has  fallen  and 
is  falling  into  neglect  and  disuse?     This  might 

9 


10  THE  REVELATION 

be  a  hopeful  sign,  for  it  might  signify  only  the 
decay  of  belief  in  it  as  a  prospective  conjuring 
book  of  the  history  of  the  nations;  it  might  sig- 
nify only  the  lull,  the  mental  indifference, which 
marks  a  period  of  mental  transition,  from  sys- 
tems of  thought  over-worn  and  unsatisfactory, 
to  something  enclosing  within  itself  a  living 
interest. 

Should  that  be  the  case,  the  present  indiffer- 
ence can  be  tolerated.  But  I  feel  so  sure  that 
the  kind  of  thought,  heretofore  connected  with 
this  book,  has  no  natural  connection  with  it, that 
T  am  anxious  to  hasten  the  day  when  it  shall 
become  again, as  it  undoubtedly  was  to  the  gen- 
eration for  which  it  was  written,  an  apocalypse 
— an  opening — a  revelation — to  the  mind  that 
reads  it. 

The  main  help  one  needs  in  studying  the 
Revelation  is  the  New  Version;  then  the  Greek 
text,  if  one  can  compass  it.  The  New  Version 
is  a  great  improvement  on  the  Old.  Commen- 
tators as  a  rule  are  to  be  discarded.  This  is  not 
to  say  that  there  are  no  commentators  who  are 
a  help  towards  the  proper  understanding  of 
the  Revelation.  It  is  simply  to  say  that  with 
rare  exceptions   they  have  not  been  a  help,  but 


THE  REyELATION  11 

have  been  a  hindrance.  To  give  this  caution 
is  far  from  saying  that  a  man  should  sit  down 
and  construct  his  own  system  of  interpretation 
from  the  King  James  or  the  New  Version  or  the 
Greek  text.  Perhaps  the  difficuhy  has  been  that 
we  have  had  too  much  of  that  kind  of  work.  No 
book  in  the  Scripture  needs  more  broad  and 
general  scholarship  to  secure  its  comprehension 
than  this, 

'  The  man  who  can  get  into  the  general  system 
of  thought  of  Jew  and  Gentile — who  can  under- 
stand the  course  of  mind  in  the  day  when  this 
book  was  written,  has  the  help  of  the  first  im- 
portance, beyond  the  text,  in  the  elucidation  of 
the  meaning  of  the  Apocalypse. 

What  John  saw  with  his  open  eyes — for  he 
had  an  open  eye — in  the  world  round  about  him 
is  the  key  to  what  he  painted  by  his  imagina- 
tion, or  by  an  inspiration  that  filled  in  and  gave 
color  and  life  to  what  imagination  limned.  So 
it  is  not  less  but  more  of  learning  that  is  wanted 
for  a  full  treatment  of  this  book.  The  difficulty 
has  been  that  men,  from  the  time  of  the  early 
fathers  through  the  middle  ages  to  these  later 
days,  have  superimposed  their  visions — what 
they  could  see  through  wooden  eyes — upon  the 


12  THE  REy ELATION 

vision  of  John.  Why  it  is  better  to  take  the  text 
than  almost  any  commentary  that  is  likely  to 
fall  into  3'our  hands, is  that  so  you  are  very  much 
more  likely  to  come  nearer  to  the  vision  of  John 
— you  have  only  your  own  imagination  to  curb 
or  regulate — your  own  disposition  to  set  up  a 
system  of  thought  for  John — to  restrain. 

Without  arguing  the  question,  it  may  be  stated 
that  the  Johannean  authorship  of  the  Apoca- 
lypse is  herein  assumed. 

Further,  the  treatment  will  follow  the  method 
of  division  of  the  book  into  two  sections — the 
first  section  consisting  of  the  first  eleven  chap- 
ters, the  last  section  comprising  the  remainder 
of  the  book-  Whoever  will  take  the  pains  to 
read  the  Apocalypse  will  see  that  this  division 
is  inherent  in  its  structure — that  it  \ay  in  the  mind 
of  the  author.  It  will  be  evident  also  that  in  the 
first  section  the  author's  vision  hovers  over 
moral  forces  and  events  seen  from  a  Jewish 
basis;  in  the  second  section  it  falls  on  them  in 
a  Roman  field. 

The   book  is  a  "revelation,"  given    to    show 

unto   the   servants  of  God  "things  which   must 

come  shortly  to  pass."  It  was  given,  primarily, 

for  the  help  of  those  in  the  immediate  day  and 


THE  REl^EL^TION  13 

generation  of  its  composition.     It   was   to    aid 
them  in  the  elucidation  of  problems  which  were 
then    pressing   upon   their   minds,  problems    of 
practical    perplexity,    of    the    Spirit's  agency. 
Now  consider  how  utterly  useless  the  prevalent 
notion,  that  this  book   is  an    outline   of    secular 
history   for   all  coming  time,  would  have  made 
the  book  to  the  church  at  the  close  of   the    first 
century.      It  is  the  problem   that  presses   upon 
your  own  mind  now  that  is  of  interest   to   you. 
What  do  you  care  about  the  problems  that   are 
to   press  upon  somebody  else    five    hundred    or 
three   thousand    years  from   this  time?     "Suf- 
ficient unto  the  day  is  the   evil   thereof."     The 
coming  generations,  with  the  assistance  of  God, 
will  take  care  of  their  own  problems. 

For  you  your  question  is,  what  is  the  imme- 
diate outlook  for  the  church?  Is  it  to  be 
swamped  beneath  a  tide  of  luxury  and  poverty 
and  materialism?  Will  the  next  generation  fear 
God  and  keep  his  commandments  as  earnestly 
as  the  last?  What  is  the  immediate  outlook  for 
the  people  of  this  country?  Shall  we  get 
through  presidential  elections  safely?  Shall  we 
in  our  generation  escape  serious  conflict  be- 
tween  capitalists  and  wage-workers?     And   so 


14  THE  REyEL^TION 

on.  Your  interest  in  such  questions  for  the  fu- 
ture dies  out  just  according  as  the  questions  re- 
cede in  the  distance  of  time. 

So  you  may  take  the  questions  that  pertain  to 
other  countries  and  peoples.  You  want  to  know 
what  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  present  Eastern 
question,  not  of  one  that  may  exist  over  the  same 
ground  five  hundred  years  to  come.  You  want 
to  know  what  will  be  the  result  of  Stanley's  ex- 
pedition across  Africa;  what  will  be  done  about 
the  slave  trade;  what  England  will  do  with 
Egypt  and  Uganda,  what  with  the  Irish  ques- 
tions; what  the  United  States  will  do  with  Ha- 
waii; whether  the  nations  of  Europe  will  arm 
or  disarm.  You  have  no  great  interest  in  pos- 
sible commotions  in  Africa  or  Europe  or  Amer- 
ica two  thousand  years  hence.  It  is  the  things 
that  "must  shortly  come  to  pass"  which  always 
press  the  most  intense  interest  upon  us. 

Now  certainly  a  Christian,  toward  the  close 
of  the  first  century,  must  have  been  deeply  anx- 
ious over  the  horoscope  of  his  immediate  future. 

The  religion  to  which  he  had  given  his  adhe- 
sion had  come  to  draw  upon  itself  the  attention 
of  the  secular  powers  which  ruled  the  world.  A 
conflict  was  inevitable — a   conflict  had    begun. 


THE  REVELATION  15 

Who  is  the  ruler  of  the  world — God  or  Caesar? 
If  Cassar,  in  the  long-sufferance  of  God,  seems 
to  have  the  domination  now,  is  that  domination 
to  last?  If  one  goes  down  to  death  for  the  faith 
here,  what  then?  What  is  beyond?  Are  there 
any  compensations  for  faithfulness  unto  death? 
To  what  does  one  go  who  endures  martyrdom? 
Questions  of  that  sort — and  surely  they  were  of 
terrible  import — were  of  practical  interest  in  the 
latter  days  of  the  Apostle  John.  The  Roman 
government  seems  to  have  had  its  iron  hand  on 
him  when  he  was  in  Patmos.  Then  the  faith  in 
which  the  Jewish  Christian  had  been  born,  the 
faith  of  his  fathers,  was  a  worn  out  affair  and 
wrath  was  impending  over  his  own  kith  and  kin, 
if  it  had  not  already  descended  in  the  fearful 
destruction  of  the  sacred  city — Jerusalem.  But 
the  Jewish  people  were  as  hostile  to  the  new 
faith  as  the  Gentiles.  Did  Cagsar  persecute,  so 
did  the  synagogue  and  the  temple.  Turn  which- 
ever wa}^  the  Christian  might,  the  powers  of  the 
earth  were  against  him.  What  should  he  do? 
Was  it  worth  while  to  face  a  struggle  in  which 
all  the  odds,  so  far  as  the  forces  of  the  world 
were  concerned,  were  against  him?  Why  die 
when  he  could   recant  and   live?     There    is   a 


16  THE  REVELATION 

glimpse  of  the  problem  that  lay  before  the  mind 
of  John. 

His  design  is  to  strengthen,  to  encourage  the 
disciple  of  Christ  to  stand  fast  in  the  faith,  to 
establish  his  belief  that  God  has  a  kingdom  in 
which  the  disciple  will  reign  triumphant,  if  his 
faith  fails  not  under  persecution ;  to  convince 
him  that  the  powers  of  earth  hostile  to  him, 
though  they  might  triumph  for  a  time  here, were 
hastening  to  corruption  and  destruction — to  an 
awful  overthrow,  in  which  he  will  assuredly 
have  part  if  he  denies  the  faith  and  beconies 
allied  with  the  doomed  powers  of  sin.  That  is 
the  moral  intent  of  the  revelation  of  John. 
There  is  no  mistaking  it,  there  is  no  possibility 
of  confusion  here.  To  strengthen  the  moral 
purpose  of  his  brethren  in  Christ,  as  they  were 
then  tempted  to  renounce  the  faith,  in  face  of  all 
the  persecuting  forces  arrayed  against  them  is 
the  central  thought, the  central  purpose  of  John. 

Take  that  common  refrain  of  the  epistles  to  the 
seven  churches;  you  can  work  out  much  by  ask- 
ing yourselves  why  "He  that  overcometh"  is 
made  a  common  refrain.  There  was  a  condition 
of  things  which  supported  it— a  condition  of  aw- 
ful moral  significance.  But  run  over  that  refrain 


THE  REyELATlON  17 

as  it  is  repeated .  and  see  what  immeasurable 
power  of  moral  leverage  over  tempted  souls  John 
gets  out  of  it. 

Overcome — die  if  necessary  to  overcome — 
and  you  "shall  eat  of  the  tree  of  life  which  is 
in  the  midst  of  the  Paradise  of  God."  Over- 
come— die  if  you  must  to  overcome — and  you 
"shall  not  be  hurt  of.  the  second  death."  Re- 
cant, if  you  choose,  to  save  your  life  and 
your  bread,  but  so  you  can  never  "eat  of  the 
hidden  manna"which  is  reserved  for  the  faithful. 
In  the  trouble  that  is  to  come  upon  the  whole 
world  to  try  them  that  dwell  upon  the  earth, 
overcome,  and  "I  will  make  of  you  a  pillar  in 
the  temple  of  m}^  God."  Sits  Caesar  on  a  throne 
and  orders  you  to  death;  overcome,  and  the 
throne  of  Csesar  shall  become  a  dunghill  in 
comparison  with  that  to  which  you  shall  be  ex- 
alted— "I  will  give  you  to  sit  down  with  me  in 
my  throne, even  as  I  also  overcame  and  sat  down 
with  my  Father  in  his  throne."  Fear  not  the 
throne  of  Cassar,  courage  will  make  you  a  partner 
in  the  power  which  proceeds  from  the  throne  of 
the  Lord  God  Almighty.  Can  you  not  see  how 
the  enforcement  of  this  thought  would  make  a 
church  of  victors,  of  heroic  martyrs,  if  martyr- 


18  THE  REI^ELATION 

dom  came?  Now  the  rest  of  the  book  is  simply 
picture  painting,  parable  adjuvant  to  this  main 
moral  purpose.  It  is  to  be  interpreted  along 
moral  lines  just  as  much  as  a  parable  of  the 
Saviour.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  thus 
and  so  according  to  both.  It  is  as  pertinent  to 
raise  the  historic  question  when  it  was  that  a 
woman  lighted  a  candle  and  searched  through 
the  house  for  a  piece  of  lost  money,  or  when  it 
was  that  a  merchant  made  his  voyage  for  goodly 
pearls,  or  when  it  was  that  a  man  sowed  wheat 
and  an  enemy  sowed  tares  in  his  field,  as  it  is 
to  ask  for  a  historic  fulfillment  of  these  paintings 
of  John  illustrative  of  the  struggle  of  moral 
forces,  illustrative  of  his  faith  and  of  the  faith  of 
all  Christians  in  the  ultimate  dominance  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  There  is  another  broad  view 
quite  evident  to  one  who  will  keep  the  whole 
section,  covered  by  the  letters,  together  before 
his  mind.  It  is  drawn  from  a  Jewish  point  of 
observation  and  was  evidently  intended  to  do 
work  with  Jewish  mind.  The  letters  to  the 
churches  are  addressed  to  churches  in  Gentile 
cities, to  be  sure,  but  there  was  a  Jewish  element 
in  those  churches.  It  would  seem  that  the 
Jewish  element  predominated.     The  cast  of  the 


THE  REyELATION  19 

letters,  while  true  enough  to  the  moral  needs  of 
minds  of  all  nationalities,  is  yet  of  Jewish  tone  and 
abounds  in  references  and  illustrations  more 
particularly  adapted  to  Jews. 

The  "candlestick,"  the  "synagogue," 
"Balaam,"  "Balak,"  "Jezebel,"  the  "vessels 
of  the  potter  broken  to  shivers,"  "Jews  that  are 
not  Jews"  but  "of  the  synagogue  of  Satan,"  the 
"temple  of  my  God,"  the  "new  Jerusalem  com- 
ing down  out  of  heaven  from  God" — such  allu- 
sions identify  the  mind  to  which  the  letters  were 
more  particularl}^  addressed.  Then  the  high 
water  mark  of  the  author's  power  is  reached  in 
the  description  of  the  sealing  of  the  one  hundred 
and  forty-four  thousand  out  of  the  tribes  of  Israel, 
and  of  the  adoration  of  God  consequent  thereon. 
True,  engaged  in  that  adoration  was  a  "great 
multitude  which  no  man  could  number,  out  of 
every  nation  and  of  all  tribes  and  peoples  and 
tongues."  But  this  multitude  constitutes  the 
background  into  which  the  picture  fades  in  the 
distance.  Israel  holds  the  foreground.  The 
pomp  and  circumstance  and  particularization  in 
the  action  come  out  over  the  saved  of  Israel. 
Then  when  the  forces  of  evil  have  wrought  their 
will,  when   "the    mystery  of  iniquity"  (to  bor- 


20  THE  REyELATlON 

row  language  from  Paul)  is  accomplished,  when 
the '"woes"  come,  work  and  glide  past,  the 
whole  action  conies  to  tinal  pause  in  a  vision 
which  could  have  its  full  significance  only  to  a 
Jewish  eye  and  be  fully  appreciated  by  a  Jewish 
heart.  The  drama  is  completed  and  the  curtain 
falls  on  this  vision:  ''And  there  was  opened  the 
temple  of  God  that  is  in  heaven,  and  there  was 
seen  in  his  temple  the  ark  of  his  covenant.'' 
The  temple  and  the  ark  of  the  covenant!  How 
dear  they  were  to  the  Jew!  All  his  notions  of 
sacredness  in  religion,  all  the  pride  of  his  patri- 
otism centerd  on  them.  They  were  to  disappear, 
from  the  earth,  perhaps  had  already  disappeared, 
but  the  Jew  would  rind  his  consolation  in  the 
assurance  that  they  were  opened  on  high.  You 
can  rind  in  this  book  that  double  Israel  which  is 
seen  throughout  all  the  old  prophets — a  right- 
eous Israel  persecuted,  suffering,  yet  reaching 
its  crown  of  Divine  destiny  under  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Messiah  and  the  Lamb;  an  evil 
Israel  persecuting,  doomed  to  captivity  and  de- 
struction; a  righteous  servant,  meek,  enduring, 
smitten  and  afflicted,  making  his  grave  with  the 
wicked,  yet  seeing  his  seed  and  satisfied;  slain, 
yet  preserved  under  the  very  altar  of  the  living 


THE  REyELATION  21 

God ;  tortured,  yet  God  wipes  away  all  tears  from 
his  eyes  and  he  reigns  forever  and  ever.  Into 
which  complications  and  contradictions  prophets 
and  kings  have  desired  to  look,  j^ethave  never 
attained  that  clearness  of  vision  which  it  is  ours 
to  enjoy. 

We  must  not  leave  untouched  the  probable 
moral  effect  of  John's  work  on  a  persecuted 
Jewish  Christian.  Whether  he  should  hold  to 
the  Christian  faith  under  its  trials  or  give  up 
that  faith  and  go.  back  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers, 
or  rather  go  over  from  the  persecuted  to  the 
persecuting  side,  that  must  have  been  the  ques- 
tion with  which  a  Jew  had  to  struggle.  Now 
read  again  the  whole  section  and  ask  yourself 
what  effect  it  must  have  had  on  the  mind  of  the 
tempted,  questioning  Jew.  To  which  Israel 
shall  he  belong — to  that  which  has  the  seal  of 
God  in  its  forehead,  or  to  that  which,  though  a 
dominant  force,  is  yet  to  be  trodden  out  under 
foot  of  the  woes  executive  of  the  wrath  of  God; 
to  the  Israel  "singing  the  new  song,"  from 
whose  eyes  God  would  wipe  away  all  tears,  or 
to  the  Israel  hiding  in  the  caves  and  the  rocks 
of  the  mountains  and  saying  to  the  mountains 
and  the  rocks,  "Fall  on  us  and  hide  us  from  the 


22  THE  REVELATIOhl 

face  of  him  that  sitteth  on  the  throne  and  frona 
the  wrath  of  the  Lamb;"  to  the  Israel  who 
clung  with  frantic  ardor  to  the  temple  on  earth, 
onl}^  to  be  overwhelmed  with  it  in  its  ruin,  or 
to  him  who  stretched  out  his  hands  to  the  tem- 
ple seen  on  high  wherein  salvation  dwelt?  It 
cannot  but  be  that  man}^  a  pious  soul  in  Israel, 
pursuing  the  line  of  these  visions, struck  the  high 
road  of  the  moral  heroism  which  overcame  all 
doubts  and  fears  and  gave  to  him,  though  suffer- 
ing martj-rdom,  the  consciousness  of  holding  the 
victor's  palm. 

So  stands  the  account  with  the  section  we 
have  before  us  as  to  moral  intent,  and  inliuence 
in  the  day  of  its  production. 

The  interpretation  of  the  symbolism  of  John 
is  not  difficult.  Take  any  symbolism  and  turn 
it  into  its  moral  or  spiritual  equivalent.  For 
instance,  take  the  Lamb;  it  is  easy  enough  to 
get  a  proper  conception  of  the  meaning  of  that 
symbol.  Take  the  delineation  in  the  first  chapter 
of  the  "one  in  the  midst  of  the  candlesticks  like 
unto  a  son  of  man,"  and  you  have  item  after 
item  indicative  of  majesty.  Take  the  last  de- 
scription of  the  Saviour  in  the  nineteenth  chap- 
ter, as  the  warrior  upon    the    white    horse,  and 


THE  REVELATION  23 

"the  wayfaring  man  though  a  fool  ought  not  to 
err  therein."  It  is  as  easy  of  interpretation  as 
the  parable  of  the  ten  talents.  Much  of  the 
symbolism  may  not  be  so  easy  of  resolution. 
But  we  cannot  go  far  astray  if  we  assume  it  all 
to  be  "aids  to  reflection"  on  spiritual  operations 
and  forces.  There  is  prognostication  about  this 
S3^mbolisrn,  but  it  relates  not  to  secular  events. 
It  is  of  that  moral  cast  whose  certainties  are 
found  by  detecting  the  lines  of  the  gravitation 
of  righteousness  and  sin. 

We  must  not  leave  this  section  without  giving 
attention  to  its  literary  merits.  As  to  form  of 
composition,  the  Revelation  is  drama.  But  it 
is  drama  of  peculiar  kind.  It  is  a  drama  ex- 
ecuted by  painting,  a  drama  whose  action  is 
carried  along  in  its  stage  scenery. 

The  spoken  words  are  often  few.  You  must 
get  the  onflow  of  the  action  from  the  painting  on 
the  curtains  or  the  scenes  which  one  after  an- 
other are  slid  along  before  your  view.  The  art 
is  mimetic,  imitative.  You  have  a  pantomime — 
as  near  as  words  can  do  it — a  show  of  all  that  is 
done.  The  actors  come  forth  and  do.  They 
do  not  tell  what  they  are  going  to  do,  nor  does 
any  one  tell  what  they  have  done.   The  trumpets 


24  THE  REy ELATION 

come  forth  and  sound.     You  see  the  trumpeters 
and  you  see  the  effects  following.     You  see  the 
smoke  come  out  of  the  pit — you  see  its  impalpa- 
ble dust  collect  in  points  of  locust  size,  you  see 
the  locusts  grow  till  they  become  like  unto  horses 
prepared  for  war,  armored  and  falling  into  line 
under    the    command    of    their    abysmal    king, 
Abaddon.     Words  are  few,  action  has  the  field. 
When  the  words  of  actors  come  they  are  rather 
refrains  in  a  movement  than  agents  in  the  prog- 
ress of  the  action.    True  to  the  Hebrew  genius, 
the   exhibitions    are    repetitive,  reinforcing    the 
same  principle  by  action  detailed  in  another  way. 
This  is  seen  in  the  case  of  the  trumpeters  in  this 
section  and  in  that  of    the  angels  with  the  vials 
or  bowls  in   the   second    section.     We  ought  to 
cultivate  our  imaginations  to  reproduce  for  us  the 
scenes  in  the  drama.     Again  and  again  for  the 
theater's  arch  we  shall  need  the  whole  opposing 
front  of   the   heavens    from    horizon    to   zenith. 
The  arch  will  be  filled  with  action  as  we  some- 
times see  it  to  be  in  an    exhibition    of    northern 
lights.      If   the   stars   are  falling,  or  an  angel  is 
flying  in  mid  heaven,  do   not    hesitate   to  make 
your  theater  for   the    scenic    action    as  large  as 
John  made  it.   John  is  imaginative  everywhere. 


THE  REVELATION  25 

With  him  numbers  are  rhetoric — they  designate 
no  exact  facts.  Witness  "the  seven  spirits  of 
God"  and  "the  twelve  thousand  sealed"  from 
every  tribe  of  Israel.  How  little  John  cares  for 
particulars  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the 
tribes  of  Dan  and  Ephraim  are  not  mentioned. 
Manasseh  is  mentioned  and  then  "the  tribe  of 
Joseph."  You  will  never  find  a  guide  who  will 
take  your  imagination  on  more  daring  flights 
than  John.  You  will  not  find  a  vision  which  is 
not  grand  throughout  and  which  does  not  sus- 
tain its  grandeur.  To  our  notions,  educated  as 
we  are  only  along  the  line  of  the  Greek  genius 
for  harmony,  the  appearance  of  the  first  charac- 
ter coming  on  the  stage  of  the  Revelation  is 
weird  and  strange.  Think  of  the  contrast,  how- 
ever, between  one  whose  form  is  made  up  of  so 
many  symbols  of  majesty  and  him  who  was  laid 
lifeless  in  the  rock-hewn  tomb.  Dismiss  notions 
of  Greek  aesthetics  and  work  up  along  the  lines 
of  moral  significance  and  we  have  in  that  rep- 
resentation of  "one  whose  head  and  hair  were 
white  as  white  wool  and  whose  eyes  were  as  a 
flame  of  fire"  a  figure  of  surprising  moral  grand- 
eur. It  will  be  a  new  sensation  to  realize  that 
moral  powers  can   thus   be  depicted,  thus  made 


\ 


26  JHEREf^EL^TION 

to  be  seen.  This  is  high  art.  But  there  is  a 
higher  art  still — the  art  that  does  not  paint — the 
art  that  suggests.  It  is  said  that  speech  is  silver 
but  that  silence  is  golden.  John  is  daring,  but 
there  are  themes  beyond  the  compass  of  his  art, 
and  he  knows  those  themes — knows  how  to  al- 
lude to  them  and  pass  without  elaboration. 

Taine's  criticism  of  Milton  is  that  he  has  made 
out  of  God,  presiding  in  the  councils  of  heaven, 
an  English  baron.  Michael  Angelo  spread  on 
the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  a  representation  of  God 
launching  the  creation  and  overseeing  its  opera- 
tions. That  was  a  daring  effort  of  genius.  But 
the  criticism  is  made,  and  it  must  be  just,  that, 
in  giving  form  to  the  Almighty,  Angelo's  work 
is  after  all  a  degradation  of  our  ideal  of  God. 
Now  see  how  John  manages  the  same  matter 
Milton  and  Angelo  have  treated.  "Behold,  there 
was  a  throne  set  in  heaven  and  one  sitting  upon 
the  throne,  and  he  that  sat  was  to  look  upon  like 
jasper  stone  and  a  sardius,and  there  was  a  rain- 
bow round  about  the  throne  like  an  emerald  to 
look  upon."  There  you  have  just  an  indication 
that  there  was  an  occupant  of  the  throne,  but 
there  is  no  description  of  the  indescribable.  A 
ray  or  two  only  of   the   effulgence  from  the  Di- 


THE  REVELATION  Ti 

vine  splendor  is  caught  and  fixed.  There  is  a 
gleam,  a  flash  of  light,  bright  and  beautiful  as 
a  reflection  from  a  jewel,  jasper  or  sardius;  be- 
yond that,  imagination  is  free.  You  are  left 
there  alone.  The  artist  has  withdrawn  his  brush. 
Where  others  have  failed  John  has  not.  He  has 
not  compelled  the  illimitable  into  limits.  A  ray 
or  two  of  the  Divine  glory  is  caught.  But  the 
golden  silence  of  tongue  and  brush  is  preserved 
respecting  the  infinite  beaut}^  and  majesty  of  the 
all-glorious.  But  where  John  has  painted,  his 
work  is  as  far  beyond  criticism  as  in  the  case  of 
refusal  to  express  the  ineffable.  John  does  dare 
to  paint  the  throne  and  its  surroundings,  if  he 
pauses  in  silent,  helpless  awe  before  him  who 
sitteth  thereon. 

All  forces,  physical,  intellectual  and  moral, 
support  the  throne  or  render  tribute  to  it.  The 
"four  living  creatures,"  representative  of  intel- 
ligence and  might, the  "four  and  twenty  elders," 
representative  of  religious  and  spiritual  powers, 
are  all  in  harmony  one  with  another  and  under 
harmonious  service  to  the  Supreme  Majesty. 
John  has  seen  far  enough  into  the  government 
of  God  to  represent  these  agencies  as  forever 
active.     There  are  no   spent  forces  about  God's 


28  THE  REyELATIOhl 

throne — no  idle  powers,  once  used,  then  cast 
aside.  The  powers  look  everywhere,  they  cover 
all  points  of  the  compass  and  all  things  lie  within 
the  range  of  their  numberless,  inspecting  eyes. 
All  things  are  in  motion  about  the  throne  and 
all  filled  with  the  spirit  of  adoration. 

"And  the  four  living  creatures  have  no  rest 
day  and  night,  saying.  Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the 
Lord  God,  the  Almighty, which  was  and  which  is 
and  which  is  to  come.  And  when  the  living 
creatures  shall  give  glory  and  honor  and  thanks 
to  him  that  sitteth  on  the  throne,  to  him  that 
liveth  forever  and  ever,  the  four  and  twenty 
elders  shal  fall  down  before  him  that  sitteth  on 
the  throne,  and  shall  worship  him  that  liveth 
forever  and  ever,  and  shall  cast  their  crowns  be- 
fore the  throne,  saying.  Worthy  art  thou,  our 
Lord  and  our  God,  to  receive  the  glory  and  the 
honor  and  the  power,  for  thou  didst  create  all 
things  and  because  of  thy  will  they  were,  and 
were  created." 

It  is  said  that  science  is  making  the  Biblical 
conceptions  of  God  tame,  fiat,  beneath  the  dig- 
nity of  the  subject.  It  may  be  safel}'  said  that 
no  science,  no  combination  of  sciences  has  re- 
duced in  rank  the  conceptions  of  John  respecting 


THE  REyELATION  29 

the  throne  of  the  universe  and  Him  that  sitteth 
thereon.  All  man's  knowledge  to  the  end  of 
time  will  iind  setting  in  John's  picture. 

Wide  comparison  will  bring  out  the  superior 
(shall  we  not  say  supreme?)  literary  excellence 
of  the  Revelation.  We  know  what  a  master- 
piece of  eloquence  is.  We  have  read  the  oration 
of  Lincoln  at  Gettysburg;  we  remember  the 
solidity  and  solemnity  of  Webster,  as  in  The 
Reply  to  Hayne,  and  in  passages  in  the  orations 
on  Adams  and  Jefferson,  and  on  the  dedication 
of  the  Bunker  Hill  monument;  and  we  recall 
The  Eulogy  of  Choate  on  Webster ;  but  the  long 
roll  of  mortal  speech  is  sounded  with  no  fuller 
tone  than  in  many  passages  of  the  Revelation. 
Take  this  from  Chapter  vii.,  after  the  sealing  of 
the  one  hundred  and  forty-four  thousand: 

"After  these  things  I  saw, and  behold,  a  great 
mutitude  which  no  man  could  number,  out  of 
every  nation  and  of  all  tribes  and  peoples  and 
tongues,  standing  before  the  throne  and  before 
the  Lamb,  arrayed  in  white  robes  and  palms  in 
their  hands;  and  they  cry  with  a  great  voice, 
saying,  Salvation  unto  our  God  which  sitteth  on 
the  throne  and  unto  the  Lamb.  And  all  the 
angels  were  standing  round  about  the  throne  and 


30  THE  REVELATION 

about  the  elders  and  the  four  living  creatures, 
and  they  fell  before  the  throne  on  their  faces 
and  worshipped  God,  saying,  Amen:  Blessing, 
and  glory,  and  wisdom,  and  thanksgiving,  and 
honor,  and  power,  and  might,  be  unto  our  God 
forever  and  ever." 

Take  this  from  Chapter  xi.,  where  the  action 
of  the  whole  drama  comes  to  final  summary: 
"And  the  seventh  angel  sounded,  and  there  fol- 
lowed great  voices  in  heaven,  and  they  said. 
The  kingdom  of  the  world  is  become  the  king- 
dom of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ;  and  he  shall 
reign  forever  and  ever.  And  the  four  and  twenty 
elders  which  sit  before  God  on  their  thrones  fell 
upon  their  faces  and  worshipped  God,  saying, 
We  give  thee  thanks,  Lord  God,  the  Almighty, 
which  art  and  which  wast,  because  thou  hast 
taken  thy  great  power  and  didst  reign.  And 
the  nations  were  wroth, and  thy  wrath  came, and 
the  time  of  the  dead  to  be  judged,  and  the  time 
to  give  their  reward  to  thy  servants  the  prophets 
and  to  the  saints,  and  to  them  that  fear  th}^ 
name,  the  small  and  the  great;  and  to  destroy 
them  that  destroy  the  earth." 

Milton  has  attempted  some  of  these  pictures; 
let  us  look  at  one: 


THE  REyELATION  31 

"No  sooner  had  the   Almighty    ceased  but  all 
The  multitude  of  angels,  with  a  shout 
Loud  as  from  numbers  without  number,  sweet 
As  from  blest  voices  uttering  joy ,  Heaven  rung 
With  jubilee,  and  loud  Hosannas  filled 
The  eternal  regions;  lowly  reverent 
Towards   either  throne  they  bow,  and  to  the 

ground, 
With  solemn  adoration,  down  they  cast 
Their  crowns  inwove  with  amarant  and  gold." 
That  may  be  finished,  but  as  for  power  it  fol- 
lows John  with  unequal  steps,  and  by  a  long  in- 
terval.     If  there  is  the  sedateness  of   dignity  in 
Milton,  there   is   action  living,  tense,  quivering 
with  passion  in  John. 

You  know  how  a  drama  turns  off  its  final 
action.  Flourish  of  trumpets;  discharge  of 
musketry;  salvo  of  artillery;  "Exeunt  omnes." 
Compare  that  with  the  final  action  in  John's 
drama. 

Last  scene:  "Andthere  was  opened  the  tem- 
ple of  God  that  is  in  heaven,  and  there  was  seen 
in  his  temple  the  ark  of  his  covenant.  Andthere 
followed  lightnings  and  voices  and  thunders, 
and  an  earthquake  and  great  hail." 


II 


THE  REVELATION. 

CHAPTERS  XII. -XXII. 

Two  principles  are  to  be  kept  firmly  in  mind 
in  reading  the  book  of  the  Revelation;  the  one 
is  that,  if  we  wish  to  understand  the  book,  we 
must  reconstruct  and  reproduce  the  history  of 
the  times  in  which  it  was  written;  the  other  is 
that,  if  we  regard  the  book  as  prophetic,  vatic- 
inal  in  character,  we  must  look  for  its  proleptic 
grasp  on  the  future  along  the  operations  of  moral 
forces  to  moral  results.  The  book  is  no  more 
an  outline  of  national  and  secular  history  in  the 
ages  before  it  to  come  than  the  first  Psalm  or 
the  Beatitudes  is  such  an  outline. 

If  we  hold  fast  these  principles  we  can  con- 
strue (shall  I  say  reconstruct?)  this  book  to 
healthful  religious  uses.  If  we  do  not  hold  these 
principles  we  shall  drop  down  to  the  level  of  that 
degradation  which  has    brooded  so  long  and  so 

32 


THE  REP'ELATION  33 

heavily  over  it  and  made  it  the  ready  reckoner 
of  the  fortunes  of  the  nations — the  political  con- 
juring book  of  superstition  and  ignorance.  In 
literary  form  this  second  part  follov^'S  close  upon 
the  mode  of  development  in  the  first  section. 
You  need  the  same  great  celestial  stage  on  which 
to  see  its  action  deployed.  As  in  the  first  sec- 
tion, so  here  repetition  is  brought  in  to  display, in 
all  ways  imaginable,  the  great  elements  of  retri- 
bution upon  wickedness  and  reward  to  right- 
eousness. As  there  in  the  case  of  the  trumpeters, 
witness  here  what  comes  in  the  train  of  the  seven 
angels  with  the  seven  bowls  out  of  which  is 
poured  the  wrath  of  God. 

The  last  half  of  the  book  of  Revelation  is  an 
outlook  over  the  then  existing  and  prospective 
moral  situation  from  a  point  of  observation  in- 
side the  power  and  influence  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, as  the  former  half  had  been  an  outlook 
from  a  base  in  the  old  Jewish  regime.  This 
latter  half  in  its  main  drift  follows  so  closely  on 
the  condition  of  things  in  the  Roman  Empire 
made  known  to  us  in  history — in  fact  identifies 
itself,  with  such  express  purpose  and  so  clearl}^ 
with  that  condition,  that  we  need  have  little 
difficulty  in  its  interpretation.     I  want  to  make 


34  THE  REVELATION 

a  Statement  radical  enough  to  attract  attention. 
We  can  read  the  Revelation  in  the  history  of 
Rome.  It  is  not  so  marvelous  and  mystical  an 
affair  then  as  we  have  thought.  Nay, more — for 
I  wish  to  be  more  radical  still — we  can  read  the 
Revelation  in  particular  pieces  of  Roman  liter- 
ature. In  fact,  we  have  a  Roman  and  heathen 
Revelation  parallel  to  the  Christian.  You  can 
put  them  side  by  side  and  read  from  the  one  to 
the  other.  Take  the  correspondence  between 
Pliny  the  younger  and  the  Emperor  Trajan; 
that  will  redeem  to  you  the  statement  that  we 
can  read  the  last  half  of  the  Revelation  out  of 
heathen  Latin  literature. 

If  these  comprehensive  (do  you  say  extrava- 
gant?) statements  need  modification  and  eluci- 
dation, then  I  will  say  that  the  correspondence 
between  Pliny  and  Trajan  discloses  such  a  state 
of  affairs  on  the  heathen  side,  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  as  will  compel  the  production  of  the 
Revelation  to  set  forth  the  thought  and  feeling 
that  are  at  work  on  the  Christian  side.  The 
Revelation  interprets  this  correspondence,  and 
this  correspondence  interprets  the  Revelation. 
Whether  you  take  the  earlier  or  the  later  date 
for  the  origin  of   the  Revelation,  will  make  no 


THE  REVELATION  35 

difference.  This  Book  and  this  correspondence 
are  substantially  contemporary.  They  came  out 
of  influences  and  events  which  the  same  genera- 
tion felt  and  observed.  The  reign  of  Trajan, 
as  you  remember,  made  the  crossing  from  the 
first  to  the  second  century;  beginning  in  98  and 
reaching  to  117  A.  D. 

Pliny  was  sent  by  Trajan  as  proconsul  to  the 
province  of  Bithynia  in  Asia  Minor.  This  prov- 
ince la\^  south  of  the  Black  Sea,  at  its  western 
extremity.  You  remember  it  is  said,  Paul 
"assayed  to  go  into  Bithynia,  but  the  Spirit  suf- 
fered him  not."  The  vision  of  the  beckoning 
Macedonian  took  him  into  Europe.  But,  though 
Paul  did  not  go  to  Bithynia,  Christianity  some- 
how did,  and  that  too  at  an  early  date  in  its  his- 
tory, for  when  Pliny  was  there  he  found  perverts 
from  Christianity  whose  apostasy  had  been  of 
twent}^  years'  standing. 

We  will  turn  to  the  correspondence. 

PLINY  TO  TRAJAN. 

"It  is  a  rule,  sir,  which  I  invariably  observe, 
to  refer  myself  to  you  in  all  my  doubts;  for  who 
is  more  capable  of  removing  my  scruples  or  in- 
forming   my  ignorance?     Having    never   been 


36  THE  REVELATIO}^ 

present  at  any  trials  concerning  those  who  pro- 
fess Christianity,  I  am  unacquainted  not  only 
with  the  nature  of  their  crimes,  or  the  measure 
of  their  punishment,  but  how  far  it  is  proper  to 
enter  into  an  examination  concerning  them. 
Whether,  therefore,  any  difference  is  usually 
made  with  respect  to  the  ages  of  the  guilty,  or 
no  distinction  is  to  be  observed  between  the 
young  and  the  adult;  whether  repentance  en- 
titles them  to  a  pardon;  or  if  a  man  has  been 
once  a  Christian,  it  avails  nothing  to  desist  from 
his  error ;  whether  the  very  profession  of  Christi- 
anity, unattended  with  any  criminal  act,  or  only 
the  crimes  themselves  inherent  in  the  profes- 
sion are  punishable;  in  all  these  points  I  am 
greatly  doubtful.  In  the  meanwhile  the  method 
I  have  observed  towards  those  who  have  been 
brought  before  me  as  Christians,  is  this:  I  in- 
terrogated them  whether  they  were  Christians; 
if  they  confessed  I  repeated  the  question  twice 
again,  adding  threats  at  the  same  time;  when, 
if  they  still  persevered,  I  ordered  them  to  be 
immediately  punished;  for  I  was  persuaded, 
whatever  the  nature  of  their  opinions  might  be, 
a  contumacious  and  inflexible  obstinacy  certainly 
deserved  correction. 


THE  REyELATIOhl  37 

"There  were  others  also  brought  before  me 
possessed  with  the  same  infatuation,  but  being 
citizens  of  Rome,  I  directed  them  to  be  carried 
thither.  But  this  crime  spreading  (as  is  usually 
the  case)  while  it  was  actually  under  prosecu- 
tion, several  instances  of  the  same  nature  oc- 
curred. An  information  was  presented  to  me 
without  any  name  subscribed,  containing  a 
charge  against  several  persons  who, upon  exam- 
ination, denied  they  were  Christians  or  had  ever 
been  so.  They  repeated  after  me  an  invocation 
to  the  gods,  and  offered  religious  rites  with  wine 
and  frankincense  before  your  statue  (which  for 
the  purpose  I  had  ordered  to  be  brought,  to- 
gether with  those  of  the  gods),  and  even  reviled 
the  name  of  Christ;  whereas  there  is  no  forcing, 
it  is  said,  those  who  are  really  Christians,  into 
a  compliance  with  any  of  these  articles:  I 
thought  proper,  therefore,  to  discharge  them. 
Some  among  those  who  were  accused  by  a  wit- 
ness in  person,  at  first  confessed  themselves 
Christians,  but  immediately  after  denied  it; 
while  the  rest  owned  indeed  that  they  had  been 
of  that  number  formerly,  but  had  now  (some 
above  three,  others  more, and  a  few  above  twenty 
years  ago)  forsaken  that  error.     They  all  wor- 


38  THE  REyEL/4TIOhl 

shiped  your  statue  and  the  images  of  the  gods, 
throwing  out  imprecations  at  the  same  time 
against  the  name  of  Christ.  They  affirmed,  the 
whole  of  their  guilt,  or  their  error,  was,  that 
they  met  on  a  certain  stated  day  before  it  was 
light,  and  addressed  themselves  in  a  form  of 
prayer  to  Christ,  as  to  some  god,  binding  them- 
selves by  a  solemn  oath,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
any  wicked  design,  but  never  to  commit  any 
fraud,  theft,  or  adultery,  never  to  falsify  their 
word,  nor  deny  a  trust  when  they  should  be 
called  upon  to  deliver  it  up;  after  which,  it  was 
the  custom  to  separate,  and  then  reassemble,  to 
eat  in  common  a  harmless  meal.  From  this 
custom,  however,  they  desisted  after  the  -publi- 
cation of  my  edict,  by  which,  according  to  your 
orders,  I  forbade  the  meeting  of  any  assemblies. 
After  receiving  this  account,  I  judged  it  so  much 
the  more  necessary  to  endeavor  to  extort  the 
real  truth,  by  putting  two  female  slaves  to  the 
torture,  who  were  said  to  administer  in  their  re- 
ligious functions;  but  I  could  discover  nothing 
more  than  an  absurd  and  excessive  superstition.  I 
thought  proper,  therefore,  to  adjourn  all  further 
proceedings  in  this  aflfair,  in  order  to  consult 
with  you.     For  it  appears  to  be  a  matter  highly 


THE  REyELATIOhl  39 

deserving  your  consideration ;  more  especially 
as  great  numbers  must  be  involved  in  the  danger 
of  these  prosecutions ;  this  inquiry  having  already 
extended,  and  being  still  likely  to  extend  to 
persons  of  all  ranks  and  ages,  and  even  of  both 
sexes.  For  this  contagious  superstition  is  not 
confined  to  the  cities  only,  but  has  spread  its 
infection  among  the  country  villages.  Never- 
theless, it  still  seems  possible  to  remedy  this  evil 
and  restrain  its  progress.  The  temples,  at  least, 
which  were  almost  deserted,  begin  now  to  be 
frequented;  and  the  sacred  solemnities,  after  a 
long  intermission, are  again  revived;  while  there 
is  a  general  demand  for  the  victims,  which  for 
some  time  past  have  met  with  but  few  pur- 
chasers. From  hence  it  is  easy  to  imagine 
what  numbers  might  be  reclaimed  from  this 
error,  if  a  pardon  were  granted  to  those  who 
shall  repent.'' 

TRAJAN  TO    PLINY. 

"The  mefliod  you  have  pursued,  my  dear 
Pliny,  against  those  Christians  which  were 
brought  before  you,  is  extremelj'  proper;  as  it 
is  not  possible  to  lay  down  any  fixed  plan  by 
which  to  act  in  all  cases   of   this  nature.     But  I 


40  THE  REVELATION 

would  not  have  you  officiously  enter  into  any 
enquiries  concerning  them.  If  indeed  they 
should  be  brought  before  you,  and  the  crime  is 
proved,  they  must  be  punished;  with  the  restric- 
tion, however,  that  when  the  party  denies  him- 
self to  be  a  Christian,  and  shall  make  it  evident 
that  he  is  not,  bj^  invoking  our  gods,  let  him 
(notwithstanding  any  former  suspicion)  be  par- 
doned upon  his  repentance.  Informations  with- 
out the  accuser's  name  subscribed,  ought  not  to 
be  received  in  prosecutions  of  any  sort,  as  it  is 
introducing  a  very  dangerous  precedent  and  by 
no  means  agreeable  to  the  equity  of  my  govern- 
ment." 

When  Pagans  write  in  that  way.  Christians 
will  write  the  Revelation.  There  is  an  issue 
joined  and  an  "irrepressible  conflict"  upon  it. 
This  correspondence  shows  you  the  pagan  side 
in  power  and  carr3nng  repressive  measures 
against  Christianity  to  torture  and  to  death. 

Now  let  us  .turn  to  see  how  John  will  treat 
such  condition  of  affairs.  John  is  a  Christian, 
a  philosopher,  and  an  idealist  and  poet.  He  is 
an  emperor  too.  That  is,  he  has  a  kingdom  in 
view  for  the  establishment  and  strengthening  of 
which  he  writes,  as  much   as  Trajan  had  in  his 


THE  REVEL/iTION  41 

letters  to  Pliny.  That  it  will  be  well  to  keep 
in  mind.  The  Revelation  would  have  been  un- 
written had  not  John  had  in  mind  to  strengthen 
Christians  under  their  trials,  tempted,  tortured 
and  to  die. 

Beginning  with  the  twelfth  chapter,  you  have 
no  difficulty  in  identifying  the  woman  "clothed 
with  the  sun"  as  the  wide  religion  of  God,  and 
her  child  as  Christianity.  The  dragon  that  seeks 
to  destroy  the  woman  and  her  child  is  wrong 
and  sin.  The  dragon  has  two  servants — one  "a 
beast  with  seven  heads  and  ten  horns,"  easily 
enough  identified  as  the  secular  power  of  the  Ro- 
man Empire,  and  another  beast,"  with  two  horns 
like  a  lamb,  but  speaking  like  a  dragon,"  easily 
enough  identified  as  the  pagan  religion.  The 
latter  beast  is  subservient  to  the  first.  The  first 
beast  opens  his  mouth  in  blasphemy  and  makes 
war  upon  the  saints,  and  the  second  beast  "ex- 
ercised the  power  of  the  first  beast  and  caused 
the  earth  and  them  that  dwell  therein  to  wor- 
ship the  first  beast  and  caused  that  as  many 
as  would  not  worship  the  image  of  the  beast 
should  be  killed."  Now  turn  to  the  letter  of 
Pliny  and  you  see  all  that  in  action.  "The 
method    I    have    observed    toward    those    who 


42  THE  REyELATlON 

have  been  brought  before  me  as  Christians  is 
this:  I  interrogated  them  whether  they  were 
Christians;  if  they  confessed,  I  repeated  the 
question  twice  again,  adding  threats  at  the  same 
time,  when,  if  they  still  persevered,  I  ordered 
them  to  be  immediately  punished.  Roman  citi- 
zens possessed  of  the  same  infatuation  I  directed 
to  be  carried  to  Rome.  Some  denied  they  were 
Christians.  They  repeated  after  me  an  invoca- 
tion to  the  gods  and  offered  religious  rites  before 
your  statue,  which  for  the  purpose  I  had  ordered 
to  be  brought,  together  with  those  of  the  gods. 
They  reviled  the  name  of  Christ;  whereas  there 
is  no  forcing,  it  is  said,  those  who  are  really 
Christians  into  compliance  with  an}^  of  these 
articles.  Some,  who  are  accused,  at  first  con- 
fessed themselves  Christians  but  immediately 
denied  it;  while  the  rest  owned  indeed  that  they 
had  been  formerly  but  now  some  above  three, 
a  few  above  twenty  years  ago  had  forsaken  that 
error.  They  all  worshiped  your  statue  and  the 
images  of  the  gods,  throwing  out  imprecations 
at  the  same  time  against  the  name  of  Christ," 

Now  if  there  are  not  lights  and  shadows 
enough  playing  over  the  scenes  set  forth  in 
Pliny's    letter  to  make  us  see  how  the  Revela- 


THE  REl^EL/fTION  43 

tion  came  into  existence  and  what  use  it  was 
meant  to  subserve, idealism  in  us  is  at  low  level. 
Time  and  space  fail  to  follow  out  the  parallelism 
between  the  two  documents  we  have  before  us. 
It  would  take  a  book  to  show  their  inter-inter- 
pretation.  But  just  imagine  a  crowd  of  accused 
Christians  before  Pliny.  Some  are  Christians 
and  some  are  not;  some  cannot  be  made  to  re- 
cant, and  some  have  recanted  and  cursed  Christ 
for  twenty   years.      Some    are    trembling    with 

fear they  do  not  want  to  apostatize  from  Christ, 

but  can  they  endure  torture?  They  are  tem- 
pested by  every  emotion  and  passion  known  to 
the  human  soul.  Now  Pliny  brings  before  them 
the  statue  of  the  Emperor.  "Will  you  worship 
this  statue?  Will  you  reverence  this  image  of 
Roman  power  and  religion  and  revile  Christ?" 
There  is  Pliny  and  the  forces  he  represents, and 
the  crowd  of  the  accused  standing  before  him. 
They  must  inevitably  yield  unless  other  influ- 
ences can  be  brought  to  bear  on  them.  Other 
influences  are  brought  to  bear  on  them.  Let 
us  see  what  they  are.  We  may  regard  John  as 
standing  beside  them  telling  them  what  he  has 
seen.  It  is  hard  to  stand  trial  before  this  court 
on  earth.     But  there   is   a  court  on  high  before 


44  THE  REl^ELATIOhl 

which  not  only  these  alleged  criminals  but  this 
very  court  itself  must  stand  in  judgment.  Pliny 
asks,  "Will  you  worship  this  statue  of  the  Em- 
peror?" 

"I  saw  an  angel  flying  in  mid  heaven,  having 
everlasting  gospel  to  preach  to  them  that  dwell 
on  the  earth,  sa3'ing:  Fear  God,  and  give  glory 
to  him,  and  worship  him  that  made  heaven  and 
earth  and  the  sea  and  fountains  of  waters. 

"If  any  man  worship  the  beast  and  his  image 
and  receive  his  mark  in  his  forehead  or  in  his 
hand,  the  same  shall  drink  of  the  wine  of  the 
wrath  of  God  which  is  poured  out  without  mix- 
ture into  the  cup  of  his  indignation;  and  he  shall 
be  tormented  with  fire  and  brimstone  in  the 
presence  of  the  holy  angels  and  in  the  presence 
of  the  Lamb;  and  the  smoke  of  their  torment 
ascendeth  up  forever  and  ever;  and  the}^  have 
no  rest  day  or  night  who  worship  the  beast  and 
his  image  and  whosoever  receiveth  the  mark  of 
his  name.  Here  is  the  patience  of  the  saints, 
here  are  they  that  keep  the  commandments  of 
God  and  the  faith  of  Jesus."  Now  remember 
that  it  is  right  in  this  connection  that  you  read: 
"I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying.  Write, 
Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord  from 


THE  REyELATION  45 

henceforth:  Yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that  they  may 
rest  from  their  labors,  and  their  works  do  follow 
them."  What  power  can  torture  and  death  have 
over  souls  to  whom  such  visions  and  such  voices 
are  reality?  The  images  of  the  Emperor  and  of 
the  gods  are  vainly  placed  before  men  who  catch 
and  trust  the  conceptions  of  John.  Suppose  the}^ 
are  tortured  and  executed,  what  of  it?  You 
have  from  Pliny's  letter  two  female  slaves  under 
the  Roman  government— but  deaconesses  in  the 
church — put  to  torture  before  your  eyes.  What 
will  be  the  result?  Will  they  recant  and  revile 
Jesus?  They  see  something  else  beside  the  im- 
mediate scene  before  them.  They  have  this 
vision  in  their  minds: 

''I  saw  as  it  were  a  sea  of  glass  raiiagled  with 
fire,  and  them  that  had  gotten  the  victory  over 
the  beast  and  over  his  image  and  over  his  mark 
and  over  the  number  of  his  name,  stand  on  the 
sea  of  glass  having  the  harps  of  God.  And  they 
sing  the  song  of  Moses  the  servant  of  God  and 
the  song  of  the  Lamb:  Great  and  marvelous  are 
th}'  works.  Lord  God  Almighty;  just  and  true 
are  thy  ways,  thou  King  of  saints.  Who  shall 
not  fear  thee,  O  Lord,  and  glorify  thj^  name? 
for  thou  only  art  holy ;  for  all  nations  shall  come 
and  worship  before  thee." 


46  THEREyELATION 

Here  is  Pliny  with  his  instruments  of  torture, 
and  here  are  these  two  female  slaves  with  this 
vision  as  a  possession  and  a  conviction.  Again 
we  ask:  What  will  be  the  result?  What  was 
the  result?  Who  went  to  the  wall?  Plin}^  with 
his  forces,  or  the  two  female  slaves  with  the 
forces  dominant  in  their  souls?  Who  worships 
the  image  of  the  Emperor  that  Pliny  set  before 
his  accused?  So  dominant  has  their  religion 
become  that  we  may  say,  who  does  not  worship 
the  God  feared  and  loved  b}-  the  two  female 
slaves?  The  description  of  the  overthrow  of 
Babylon  in  Chapter  xviii.  is  not  overdrawn  as 
representing  the  utter  wreck  of  both  the  secular 
and  the  religious  powers  of  which  Pliny  was 
agent. 

This  second  half  of  the  book  of  Revelation  is 
stamped  throughout  with  the  impress  of  purpose 
to  meet  just  such  exigencies  as  are  revealed  to 
us  in  this  correspondence  of  the  proconsul  of 
Bithynia  and  the  Roman  Emperor. 

There  is  hardly  a  verse  in  which  adaptation 
to  the  then  present  troubles  is  not  discernible. 
There  were  men  brought  up  before  Pliny  who, 
he  says, confessed  and  denied  in  the  same  breath. 
We  know  of  the   moral  weakness  out  of  which 


THE  RE  y ELATION  47 

such  action  sprang.  We  can  sympathize  with  it. 
Yet  perdition  is  in  the  train  of  such  moral  force- 
lessness.  Many  when  they  denied  doubtless 
lied.  Many  said  they  had  been  Christians  but 
gave  up  that  religion  long  ago.  Many  doubtless 
that  said  this  were  conscious  that  it  was  untrue. 
Now  go  to  the  very  last  chapter  but  one,  where 
you  have  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  be- 
fore you — when  the  former  things  are  passed 
away  and  you  think  you  are  dealing  with  the 
last  things  in  the  infinitely  extended  future,  and 
every  representation  is  stamped  with  reference  to 
this  trembling,  stammering,  fearing  crowd  before 
Pliny.  "He  that  overcometh  shall  inherit  all 
things,  and  I  will  be  his  God  and  he  shall  be  my 
son.  But  the  timid  and  the  faithless  and  all  liars 
shall  have  their  part  in  the  lake  that  burneth 
with  fire  and  brimstone."  It  will  not  do  to  con- 
fess and  deny  before  Pliny,  and  if  you  save 
yourself  by  lying  before  that  tribunal,  it  will 
only  be  to  fall  under  the  everlasting  condemna- 
tion of  one  more  dread.  The  Book  from  be- 
ginning to  end  had  a  purpose,  and  that  purpose 
was  to  meet  an  issue  then  pressing.  What  kind 
of  an  issue  there  was  joined,  this  classic  corre- 
spondence between  Pliny  and  Trajan  discloses. 


48  THE  REyELATIOhl 

In  the  action  of  this  section  it  is  eas}^  enough 
to  follow  the  lines  of  retribution  as  the  angels 
one  after  another  empty  their  bowls.  At  the 
close  of  their  action  you  have  an  entire  rear- 
rangement of  the  scenes.  True  to  the  genius  of 
enforcing  by  repetition,  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  chapters  give  a  new  setting  for  all 
that  has  gone  before  in  reference  to  the  Roman 
Empire — only  here  the  vision  seems  to  rest 
rather  on  the  city  of  Rome  than  on  the  broad 
expanse  of  the  whole  Roman  state.  These  two 
chapters  may  be  considered  as  an  expansion  of 
what  is  given  briefly  in  the  19th  verse  of  Chap- 
ter xvi.  "The  great  harlot  that  sitteth  upon 
many  waters"  can  be  nothing  else  than  the  city 
of  Rome.  This  harlot  is  viewed  as  the  imper- 
sonation of  the  inspiration  of  sin. 

Here  it  may  be  said  that  the  attempted  identi- 
fication by  ultra  Protestantism  of  this  "woman 
arrayed  in  purple  and  scarlet"  with  the  Roman 
Catholic  church  is  a  fetch  worthless  and  un- 
worthy. John  was  looking  upon  the  then  ex- 
isting sin  of  pagan  Rome.  What  that  condi- 
tion was  you  can  learn  from  Roman  authors 
themselves.  Juvenal  was  a  contemporary  of 
John.      Juvenal    was    hard,    cold,    intellectual, 


THE  REVELATION  49 

satirical,  biting,  bitter,  but  doubtless  substantially 
truthful.     The  satires   of   Juvenal   may  be  read 
as  a  commentary  on  John. 
"Nothing  is  left,  nothing,  for  future  times 

To  add°to  the  full  catalogue  of  crimes; 

The  baffled  sons  must  feel  the  same  desires. 

And  act  the  same  mad  follies,  as  their  sires. 

Vice  has  attained  its  zenith." 

To  a  spiritual  optimist  like  John  that  could 
not  be  the  end  of  things.  Vice,  however  tri- 
umphant then,  must  go  to  the  lake  that  burneth 
with  fire  and  brimstone;  its  overthrow  is  sure 
and  awful. 

Here  is  a  good  opportunity  to  glance  at  the 
second  of  the  interpretative  principles  by  which 
we  have  been  guided. 

There  is  no  book  in  the  Scriptures  which  has 
less  of  prophecy,  considered  as  fortune  telling 
respecting  nations  or  the  church, than  this.  There 
is  absolutely  nothing  in  it  concerning  Alaric, 
Attila,  Mahomet,  Charlemagne,  Napoleon, 
pope,  or  popes,  the  Catholic  Church  or  Protes- 
tantism, or  the  persons  and  events,  thousand  and 
one,  that  have  been  picked  out  as  designated  by 
it.  There  is  a  symbolism  cast  over  the  future 
covering  this  truth  and  nothing  more: 


50  THE  REl/ELATION 

"Truth  crushed  to  earth  shall  rise  again; 
The  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers. 
But  error  wounded   writhes  with  pain 
And  dies  amid  her  worshipers." 

Or  this: 

"Though  the  mills  of  God  grind  slowly, 
Yet  they  grind  exceeding  small; 
Though  with  patience  He  stands  waiting, 
With  exactness  grinds  he  all." 

We  have  thrown  into  the  future,  in  our  mis- 
taken attempts  at  interpretation,  even  on  moral 
lines,  what  was  uttered  by  John  with  reference 
to  the  then  present  or  what  is  applicable  to  the 
always  present.  Take  the  first  resurrection  and 
the  millennium.  We  put  that  in  the  distant  future 
as  a  historic  event.  Now  the  Revelation  gives 
no  warrant  for  any  such  interpretation,  except 
as  3'ou  regard  the  resurrection  as  an  ever  present 
and  so  as  a  possibly  existing  future  fact.  Go 
back  to  the  crowd  of  the  accused  standing  be- 
fore Pliny  with  the  alternative  of  worship  of  the 
Emperor's  statue  or  death.  Now  what  will 
happen  suppose  the  latter  is  chosen?  what  will 
be  a  reason  why  the  latter  is  chosen? 

"I  saw  the  souls  of  them  that  were  beheaded 
for  the  witness  of  Jesus  and  for  the  word  of  God 
and  which  had  not  worshipped  the  beast,  neither 


THE  REI/ ELATION  51 

his  image,  neither  had  received  his  mark  upon 
their  foreheads  or  in  their  hands,  and  they  lived 
and  reigned  with  Christ  a  thousand  years.  This 
is  the  first  resurrection."  If  we  want  to  know 
what  the  first  resurrection  is,  instead  of  looking 
ahead  to  the  end  of  the  ages,  we  must  lookback 
and  see  what  John  says  will  happen  to  one  who 
is  beheaded  for  the  witness  of  Jesus.  He  goes 
to  live  and  reign  with  Christ  an  indefinite  period. 
The  Greek  text  reads,  "thousand  years,"  with- 
out limiting  article.  That  is  the  first  resurrec- 
tion. The  value  of  that  teaching  for  us  is,  that, 
if  we  are  true  to  Christ  in  our  day,  at  our  death 
we  go  up  to  live  and  reign  with  Christ,  and  on 
us  the  second  death  or  moral  destruction  shall 
have  no  power.  The  rest  of  the  dead  appear 
not  on  the  canvas  before  John.  They  are  not 
astir.  The}^  are  not  with  this  glorious  army  of 
martyrs.  The  vision  discloses  them  not.  Con- 
cerning their  fortunes  till  the  final  judgment 
assize,  when  "the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand 
before  God  and  the  books  are  opened,"  the 
vision  is  silent.  To  the  question,  what  were 
their  experiences  in  that  intervening  time? — 
"There  lives  no  record  of  reply." 


52  THE  REl/BLATlOhl 

"The  rest  remaineth   unrevealed; 
He  told  it  not.      Something  sealed 
The  lips  of  that  evangelist." 

The  vision  is  meant  for  the  comfort  of  the 
saints  in  their  trials,  is  meant  to  give  strength 
to  the  timid  as  they  debate  the  question  whether 
they  shall  worship  the  statue  of  the  Emperor  or 
worship  God.  When  you  stand  looking  at  the 
Battle  of  Gettysburg,  on  its  vast  canvas  you  do 
not  see  what  is  going  on  at  Vicksburg.  So  the 
Revelation  pictures  sometimes  confine  the  view 
to  one  set  of  occurrences,  leaving  others  un- 
limned,  however  important  they  may  be.  Drama 
after  drama  passes  in  its  action  before  you,  with 
hints  here  and  there  that  other  dramas  are  con- 
temporaneously enacting,  though  upon  them  the 
curtain  is  never  rung  up.  This  is  the  case  with 
the  millennium.  It  is  a  past  and  ever  present 
fact.  Past  historically  in  the  case  of  all  who 
have  died  in  the  faith;  present  as  we  pass  over 
to  the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first 
born  whose  names  are  written  in  heaven.  This 
is  the  first  resurrection — a  present  spiritual  in- 
stitution and  the  inheritance  of  the  saints  in  light. 
Forms  of  trial  change  in  the  ages.  But  the  re- 
sults of  contests   with   temptation  are  the  same. 


THE  REVELATION  53 

There  is  still  a  second  death  and  a  first  resur- 
rection as  the  possible  outcome  of  all  our  con- 
flicts with  sin.  Still  is  the  inheritance  of  all 
things  the  portion  of  him  that  overcometh. 

The  crowning  vice  of  the  interpretation  of  the 
Revelation  has  been  the  attempt  to  treat  the 
visions  as  indicating  a  consecutive  order  in  time. 
There  is  no  reason  wh}^  the  final  judgment  may 
not  be  regarded  as  contemporaneous  with  the 
processes  of  the  first  resurrection  and  of  the 
second  death.  John  is  as  silent  respecting  any 
second  resurrection  for  the  good  as  he  is  re- 
specting a  first  resurrection  for  the  wicked. 

The  judgment  scene  in  the  latter  part  of 
Chapter  xx.  may  be  the  totality  of  a  process  a 
part  of  which  has  been  seen  in  another  way  be- 
fore. 

Time  fails  to  comment  on  the  literary  merits 
of  this  section  of  the  Book.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  it  secures  increasing  interest  in  the  prog- 
ress of  the  action  to  the  close.  Passion  and 
power  nowhere  rise  to  heights  more  sublime  or 
are  nowhere  longer  sustained  than  in  Chapter 
xviii.,  in  the  action  grouped  around  the  fall  of 
Babylon  the  great.  That  chapter  is  a  master- 
piece of  imagination.      Its  equal  in  graphic  ela- 


54  THE  REyELATIOhl 

boration  and- in  the  expression  of  intensity  of 
feeling  is  not  easil}^  found  in  literature.  In 
these  respects  there  is  certainly  no  superior. 
Perhaps  you  may  call  that  chapter  the  grand 
climacteric  of  the  passion  of  the  Revelation. 

When  were  these  descriptions  fulfilled  ?  In 
their  scenic  literalness  never.  But  in  the  spirit- 
ual realm  they  are  alwa3^s  fulfilling.  Rome 
never  was  overthrown  in  manner  and  form  as 
set  forth  by  John.  But  take  the  wickedness  of 
that  day — how  utter  its  destruction!  dead,  burnt 
out,  burnt  up,  gone — gone  to  the  lake  that 
burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone — no  resurrec- 
tion awaits  it.  The  passions  of  a  Caesar,  of  the 
corrupt  populace, extinct  as  Archean  volcanoes! 

One  would  have  supposed  that  when  the  wick- 
edness enthroned  and  entrenched  in  the  Roman 
Empire  was  overthrown  and  sent  to  its  doom, 
John  would  have  reached  the  terminus  of  hia 
excursion  among  spiritual  things.  But  no,  John 
sees  an  end  beyond  that  end.  The  beast  and 
false  prophet  may  have  received  sentence  for- 
ever, but  Satan  is  bound  only  for  an  indefinite 
period.  Sin  is  inveterate.  The  forms  then  ex- 
isting would  lose  their  force  and  die.  But  in 
other  days  it  will  in  other  ways  gather  head  and 


THE  REyELATION  55 

Still  make  war  upon  the  saints.  But  it  is  a  losing 
battle  that  it  fights.  Ultimately  all,  the  deceived 
and  the  deceiver,  go  where  the  Roman  beast 
and  the  false  prophet  have  gone,  and  their  ad- 
juncts Death  and  Hades  are  cast  into  the  lake 
of  fire  with  them.      So  perishes  sin. 

The  rest  of  the  book  is  a  detail  of  the  fortunes 
of  triumphant  righteousness.  The  description 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  is  of  quieter  feeling,  as  is 
fit,  but  the  eye  of  man  has  scarcely  seen  a  beauty 
or  a  magnificence  in  nature  which  is  not  put 
under  contribution  to  the  picture.  One  would 
say  that  what  is  begun  with  such  high  colors 
could  not  be  congruously  completed,  3^et  it  is. 
The  city  stands  in  its  perfect  beaut3\  The  river 
of  the  water  of  life  glides  through  it.  The  tree 
of  life  bears  its  fruit  for  it,  and  "the  Lord  God 
is  the  light  of  it."  The  power  of  that  painting 
over  human  souls  has  been  felt  in  the  ages  past; 
it  will  abide  on  them  through  time.  That  scenic 
beauty  will  never  weather-wear.  It  is  fadeless 
as  eternity. 

From  beginning  to  end  the  Revelation  is  sus- 
tained by  the  spirit  of  optimism.  No  sin  can 
prevail.  The  ongoing  of  the  universe  is  against 
it  and  will  crush  it  out.   No  righteousness,  how- 


56  THE  REVEL/iTIOhl 

ever  gentle,  can  be  lost.  Behind  it  is  the  love 
and  might  of  God.  Tennyson  has  his  way  of 
coming  at  it,  and  John  has  his,  but  both  have 
the  same  ultimate  philosophy — all  things  rest  in 
God  Pantokrator,  and  move  toward  ends  de- 
signed by  his  wisdom  and  love,  in  processes 
directed  by  his  will. 

"That  God  which  ever  lives  and  loves, 
One  God,  one  law,  one  element. 
And  one  far-off  Divine  event. 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 


III. 

JOB. 

In  this  outline  exposition  of  the  book  of  Job 
all  questions  are  dismissed  save  form  and  intent 
of  composition. 

In  form  Job  is  drama  and  presents  all  the 
difficulties  and  perplexities  of  that  species  of 
composition. 

The  final  expositor  of  Hamlet  has  not  laid 
down  his  pen  There  is  much  yet  to  be  said 
about  the  meaning  that  Shakespeare  had  in 
writing  his  lines,  and  there  is  no  end  to  the  pos- 
sibilities of  their  suggestion. 

Is  not  that  the  mark  of  a  great  composition — 
that  it  is  the  perennial  fountain  of  exposition  and 
comment?  That  it  sets  and  holds  men  to  thought 
upon  it  is  an  indication  not  of  obscurity  but  of 
luminousness.  It  shines  out  like  the  sun,  many- 
rayed,  in  all  directions.  We  approach  it  now 
along  some  lines,  now  along  others.  Its  genius 
is  that   it   holds   you,  come  to  it  howsoever  you 

will. 

57 


58  JOB 

Job  is  one  of  the  great  writings  that  provoke 
thought.  System  after  system  can  be  found  in 
it  or  raised  from  it.  It  is  a  great  composition 
that  can  challenge  and  charm  thought  for  two 
thousand  five  hundred  years  and  still  find  men 
as  eager  to  search  for  its  truths  and  suggestions 
as  ever. 

The  latest  products  of  printing  are  treatises 
explanatory  of  Job;  and  they  find  attent 
readers. 

This  review  can  only  touch  upon  points.  Yet 
a  bird  flying  over  a  continent  ought  to  know 
that  there  is  something  there — here  and  there  a 
noble  stream,  here  and  there  a  mighty  forest 
under  whose  "tall  oaks  and  gnarled  pines"  the 
cool  shade  is  scented  by  the  trailing  arbutus  and 
the  violet. 

What  is  the  plot  of  a  drama?  What  is  its 
theme,  what  is  it  meant  to  set  forth?  You 
might  think  that  ought  always  to  be  clear,  but 
it  very  frequently  is  not,  and  certainly 'is  not  in 
Job. 

The  prologue  opens  with  one  set  of  questions 
in  dispute, and  the  main  body  of  the  development 
seems  to  be  occupied  with  another.  There  seems 
to  be  a  mismatch  between   the    point  argued  by 


JOB  59 

Satan  against  Jehovah  and  that  at  issue  between 
Job  and  his  three  friends.  But  that  is  the  art  of 
drama — to  throw  you  off  the  track  for  a  long 
time  and  then  to  approach  the  point  of  interest 
in  an  unexpected  way.  I  think  we  shall  get  a 
clue  that  will  guide  us  with  some  satisfaction 
through  the  book  if  we  regard  the  main  issue 
as  lying  in  the  dispute  set  forth  in  the  prologue, 
the  discussion  between  Job  and  his  friends, 
Elihu  included,  as  incidental. 

The  fundamental  question  of  this  drama  is 
not  the  philosophy  of  human  suffering,  but, 
what  do  men  serve  God  for?  Is  there  any  such 
thing  as  righteousness  per  se^  or  is  it  all  for  a 
price?  To  try  out  that  question  is  the  end  for 
which  all  the  rest  of  the  action  of  the  drama  is 
brought  on  to  the  stage.  Jehovah  said  there 
were  men  that  were  good  for  goodness'  sake. 
Satan  said  there  were  no  such  men,  that  if  men 
are  good  they  are  so,only  for  some  ulterior  end  of 
pleasure  or  advantage,  that  if  they  are  not  as 
bad  as  they  can  be, they  are  as  bad  as  they  dare. 
Jehovah  says  there  is  a  man.  Job,  who  means 
to  be  good  through  thick  and  thin ;  he  loves 
righteousness  for  its  own  sake  and  hates  iniquity 
in  itself.    Satan  says,  with  a  guffaw,  "Doth  Job 


60  JOB 

fear  God  for  naught?  He  is  having  an  easy 
time,  you  have  hedged  him  in  so  that  every- 
thing is  fortunate  for  him,  but  let  luck  run 
against  him  and  you  will  see  what  his  virtue 
amounts  to."  Satan,  "the  accuser  of  his 
brethren,"  is  a  C3'nic.  We  understand  from 
the  Revelation  that  heaven  is  swept  clean  of 
such  characters  now.  But  he  and  his,  alas! 
were  ''cast  down"  to  the  earth.  His  angels  here 
are  sturdy,  numerous — 

"Thick   as   autumnal   leaves    that  strow  the 
brooks 
In  Vallambrosa" — 

people  who  assert  that  there  is  nothing  good  in 
man,  woman  or  politics;  that  everybody  is  cor- 
rupt, and  for  sale;  that  the  good  only  are  those 

"Whose  life  is  like  a  weel-gaun  mill, 
Supplied  wi'  store  o'  water; 
The  heappet  happer's  ebbing  still, 
And  still  the  clap  plays  clatter." 

Philosophically  you  would  say  that  Satan  was 

a  utilitarian,  an    egoistic   hedonist,  that   he  had 

drunk  long  and  deep  from  tha    wells  of  Hobbes 

and  Bentham ;  that  what  he  means  is  that  first, 

last  and  all  the  time  there  are  no  deeper  springs 

in  man's  nature   than    pleasure   or  self-interest; 

that  he  is  incapable  of  an  action  whose  ulterior 


JOB  61 

motive  is  not  one  of  personal  advantage.  Hobbes 
said  the  word  "ought''  ought  to  be  expunged 
from  the  language  and  Satan  said  it  had  been. 
That  is  the  ground  on  'which  Satan  plants  him- 
self in  his  controversy  with  Jehovah.  It  is  to 
try  out  this  question  whether  there  are  any 
springs  of  reverence,  of  attachment  to  righteous- 
ness in  man's  nature  to  which, he  will  prove 
true  under  all  circumstances, that  the  machinery 
of  the  drama  is  set  in  motion.  Satan  is  balked 
in  his  first  experiment  with  Job  over  this  ques- 
tion, and,  on  complaint  that  the  trial  is  not  severe 
enough,  gets  a  carte  blanche  to  proceed  to  the 
last  extremity  but  that  of  life. 

Thus  stands  the  matter  in  the  court  of  heaven. 
Now  the  scene  is  transferred  to  the  plane  of 
earth.  It  looks  like  contretemps,  cross  purposes, 
for  Job  and  his  friends  to  fall  so  long  and  so 
ardently  to  the  discussion  of  the  question  of  the 
philosophy  of  human  suffering.  That  is  not  the 
question  to  which  our  attention  has  been  called 
in  the  scene  laid  in  the  Divine  abode.  But 
consider;  how  could  the  drama  be  otherwise 
developed?  We  have  had  a  corner  of  the  cur- 
tain pulled  aside  that  we  might  look  upon  action 
above   that    was    entirely   concealed  from  those 


62  JOB 

below.  They  did  not  know  what  we  do;  so  far 
as  they  are  concerned  the  action  begins  with 
them  in  the  unheralded  disasters  that  overtake 
Job.  On  the  face  of  the  case  they  have  nothing 
to  do  with  anything  but  the  philosophy  of  those 
disasters.  They  know  nothing  about  the  scene 
in  the  upper  realm — nothing  about  the  points 
and  purposes  at  issue  there.  They  take  up  their 
problem  from  their  point  of  knowledge  and  pro- 
ceed to  deal  with  it  as  best  they  can.  The  ques- 
tion plainly  enough  before  them  is,  why  this 
disaster,why  this  suffering,  what  is  its  meaning, 
intent  and  purpose? 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  particularize  in  re- 
spect to  the  course  of  the  argument  over  that 
question.  Long  as  that  argument  is,  clear 
through  to  the  end  of  Elihu's  speech  it  is  very 
simple.  The  philosophy  is  such  and  such  only 
as  could  come  out  of  the  thought  of  the  time. 
Job's  friends  had  a  truth — an  important  truth, 
to  wit,  that  sin  and  suffering  are  conjoined. 
That  is  a  good  induction  in  any  age.  But  it  is 
good  only  for  a  certain  class  of  facts  and  cannot 
be  laid  down  over  all.  Job's  friends  seem  to 
have  multiplied  and  replenished  the  earth  with 
their  like.     There    is    many   a    theologian  and 


JOB  63 

many  a  scientist  who  is  simply  a  case  of  rever- 
sion, atavism, to  the  type  of  Job's  friends, — who 
has  found  a  principle,  raised  from  observation 
of  a  few  facts,  and  who  forthwith  strains  himself 
to  make  it  cover  all  the  facts  of  the  universe, 
will  they,  nill  they.  Sometimes,  however,  "a 
bed  is  shorter  than  that  a  man  can  stretch  him- 
self on  it;  and  a  covering  narrower  than  that  he 
can  wrap  himself  in  it."  But  that  made  little 
difference  to  Job's  friends  and  makes  little  to 
their  philosophical  successors.  If  the  facts  do 
not  fit  the  theor}^,  so  much  the  worse  for  the 
facts;  cast  them  out, ignore  them,  embrain  them, 
transmute  them  into  something  else.  F'tat 
THEORY,  rtiat  coelmn. 

The  whole  section  occupied  by  the  discussion 
of  Job  and  the  three  friends  is  relieved  from 
tediousness  only  by  the  beaut}'  of  its  illustrative 
description.  Philosophically  no  advance  is  made 
in  it.  The  friends  begin  by  insinuation  and  end 
by  charge  of  wickedness  on  the  part  of  Job  as 
the  key  to  his  misery.  Job  iterates  and  reiterates 
denial  of  their  theory  as  just  explanation  of  his 
trouble.  There  is  no  advance  in  the  philosophy 
of  suffering  over  this  ground — that  suffering  is 
and  ought  to  be  an  adjunct  of  sin,  and  over  the 


64  JOB 

illegitimate  conclusion  that  where  there  is  suf- 
fering there  is  sin,  till  you  get  to  Elihu. 

Whatever  the  critics  ma}^  say  about  the  drop 
in  the  literary  character  of  the  part  of  Elihu — 
whatever  they  may  say  about  interpolation  by  a 
later  hand  than  an  original  writer — the  part 
borne  by  Elihu  is  a  necessity  in  the  moral  de- 
velopment of  the  doctrine  under  discussion.  If 
Elihu's  speeches  are  an  interpolation,  then  some- 
body worked  over  the  original  drama  who  had 
better  moral  insight  than  the  first  author.  The 
position  that  suffering  may  not  be  sign  of  sin 
but  a  means  of  moral  discipline,  is  a  distinct  and 
immeasurable  advance  on  the  argument  of  the 
three  friends.* 

''Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity,"  and  ''by 
the  sorrow  of  the  countenance  the  heart  is  made 
better," — there  is  a  principle  as  inherently  im- 
portant, and  to  observation  as  widel}^  employed, 
as  the    following   of   sin    by  suffering.     To  at- 

*  The  author  of  Job  was  under  no  obligation  to  write  to  suit 
his  modern  critics.  If  he  were,  he  might  well  have  passed  all 
effort  to  begin  with.  Suppose  the  Elihu  section  is  not  up  in 
liternry  strength  and  finish  to  the  rest  of  the  treatise,  what  of 
it?  Passion  and  power  in  the  Reply  to  Hayne  are  not  equal 
in  all  its  parts.  It  is  said  that  Homer  nodded.  Perhaps  Job 
did.  It  is  hard  to  keep  protracted  and  involved  composition 
throughout  up  to  the  point  of  its  highest  tension.  A  moral 
height  is  gained  by  Elihu  that  looks  far  out  over  and  beyond 
the  fo  )t-hills  of  the  previous  argument,  whatever  their  beau- 
ties may  be. 


JOB  65 

tribute  the  part  of  Elihu  to  a  subsequent  emen- 
dator  is  simply  to  assert  that  the  original  author 
did  not  know  about  a  principle  of  explanation 
of  suffering  that  v\'as  the  burden  of  many  a 
writer  and  observer  before  his  day,  speaker  of 
proverbs,  writer  of  psalms  or  prophet.  Indeed, 
to  this  day  you  cannot  do  much  better  with  the 
philosophy  of  suffering  than  Elihu  did  with  it. 
We  read  to-day  as  about  the  best  thing  we  can 
do  to  steady  mind  in  affliction:  "Now  no 
chastening  for  the  present  seemeth  joyous,  but 
grievous;  nevertheless,  afterward  it  yieldeth  the 
peaceable  fruit  of  righteousness  to  them  that  are 
exercised  thereby." 

It  may  seem  strange  that  Elihu,  on  this  point 
of  the  uses  of  adversity  as  discipline,  did  not 
lay  stress  on  immortality  as  laying  ground  for 
reconciliation  of  the  difficulties  of  the  problem. 
Not  that  the  idea  of  immortality  is  a  solvent  of 
all  trouble  in  the  case,  but  it  does  present  a 
perspective  on  whose  magnificent  stretch  the 
trials  of  time  dwindle  into  insignificance.  It  is 
in  view  of  the  opening  up  of  that  great  realm 
tjiat  Paul  puts  all  the  argument  he  wishes  to 
make,  over  the  question  that  is  debated  so  long 
and  strenuously  in  Job,  in  this  succinct  form; 


66  JOB 

"For  our  light  affliction  which  is  but  for  a 
moment  worketh  for  us  a  far  more  exceeding 
and  eternal  weight  of  glory: 

"While  we  look  not  on  the  things  which  are 
seen  but  upon  the  things  which  are  not  seen; 
for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal;  but 
the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal.'* 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  had  the  conviction  of 
immortality  been  as  firm  with  the  participants 
in  the  debate  in  Job  as  with  Paul  we  should 
never  have  had  this  argument  over  the  philoso- 
ph}'  of  suffering,  at  least  in  this  form.  One 
thought  would  have  obviated  the  necessity  of 
going  over  all  the  ground  traversed  in  that  book 
on  this  philosophy.  Man  is  a  great  being,  with 
an  unbounded  future.  The  gymnastics  of  time — 
moral  as  well  as  other — develop  him  and  make 
him  fitter  to  enter  with  mastery  upon  his  eternal 
heritage.  Huddle  existence  up  together  in  the 
years  of  time, and  our  suffering  fills  a  large  space 
in  it.  But  let  existence  be  aeonic,  let  it  run  limit- 
less, and  the  affliction  becomes  light,  a  mote  in 
the  sunbeam, and  we  know  that  it  will  disappear 
a  speck  in  the  distance,  while  we  are  onward 
bound  to  "vaster  issues." 

But  this  light  did  not  shine  on  the  problems 


JOB  67 

in  Job.  Existence  with  the  Hebrew  as  well  as 
the  Greek  was  geocentric — better,perhaps,to  the 
superficies  of  the  earth.  To  be  sure, the  Hebrew 
had  his  sheol,  as  well  as  the  Greek  his  hades, 
but  it  was  dark  and  forbidding  ground,  unil- 
lumined  by  any  bright  flush  of  day. 

How  that  matter  stood  with  Job,  hear  himself 
say:  ''Are  not  my  days  few?  cease  then,  and 
let  me  alone,  that  I  may  take  comfort  a  little 
before  I  go  whence  I  shall  not  return,  even  to 
the  land  of  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death; 
a  land  of  darkness  as  darkness  itself;  and  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  without  any  order,  and  where 
the  light  is  as  darkness." 

That  men  ever  believed  in  the  continuity  of 
existence  is  evident  enough  over  and  over  again 
in  the  book  of  Job.  But  the  continuation  beyond 
this  life  was  not  in  desirable  conditions.  There 
was  no  sunshine  in  that  land.  Souls  went  not 
up  and  away,  but  down  and  below.  You  need 
not  hunt  far  in  Job  to  find  such  idea  of  immor- 
tality. You  strike  it  in  the  very  first  reply  of 
Eliphaz  the  Temanite  to  Job's  first  lament. 

The  famous  text,  "  I  know  that  my  Redeemer 
liveth,"  we  shall  not  be  able  to  make  much  out 
of.   In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  a  Redeemer  from 


68  JOB 

sin  that  Job  wants.  Just  what  he  is  asserting  is 
that  he  has  committed  no  sin  or  no  such  sin  as 
alleged  by  his  friends.  He  is  stung  to  the  quick 
by  their  indictment  and  in  his  exasperation  cries 
out  for  an  Avenger  to  take  his  part  against  such 
a  charge,  and  in  irate  hyperbole  says  that  if  his 
flesh  should  go  with  his  corrupting  skin  some- 
body will  yet  stand  up  for  his  vindication  on  the 
earth,  and  he  shall  see  him. 

Job's  faith  in  a  vindicator  may,  however,  para- 
phrase our  faith  in  a  Redeemer  and  in  an  im- 
mortality thick  sown  with  blessed  privilege  and 
bright  with  delight.  But  then,  our  faith  is  ours 
and  not  Job's. 

Life  never  leaves  us  where  we  started.  A 
drama  representative  of  life  will  not  leave  the 
parties  in  interest  where  they  started.  There 
will  be  progress  about  it.  The  saint  will  per- 
severe to  his  destination  and  the  sinner  to  his. 
But  in  life,  and  in  drama  which  is  its  parable, 
there  are  critical  periods  of  trial  where  the  prin- 
ciples of  life  will  be  put  to  the  test — danger 
periods  wherein  the  good  may  seem  to  be  con- 
fused, to  falter,  and  to  be  near  to  overthrow. 
A  Psalmist  looking  back  over  some  such  period 
in  his  career  cried  out:  "But  as  for  me,  my  feet 


JOB  69 

were  almost  gone;  my  steps  had  well  nigh 
slipped." 

Remember  that  this  drama  was  writ  not  to 
prove  that  Job  was  a  good  man,  but  to  show 
what  a  good  man  will  do  under  trial.  How  will 
he  be  modified  by  his  circumstances?  What  will 
he  do  with  the  new  conditions  into  which  he  is 
brought  by  the  change  and  progress  of  events? 
Will  he  safely  pass  through  the  testing  crises,  and 
what  are  they?  Somewhere  in  his  fiounderings, 
in  his  attempt  to  find  firm  footing  before  the 
charges  of  his  adversary  friends,  as  they  brought 
before  him  the  fact  that  sin  finds  trial  and  thence 
inferred  that  trial  is  an  index  of  sin.  Job  stum- 
bles on  the  fact  that  sin  does  not  always  have  a 
hard  lot,  not  always  is  it  true  that  "the  way  of 
transgressors  is  hard."  It  was  just  exactly  this 
fact  that  the  Psalmist  whom  we  last  quoted  was 
contemplating : 

"I  was  envious  at  the  foolish  when  I  saw  the 
prosperity  of  the  wicked.  Their  strength  is  firm. 
They  are  not  in  trouble  as  other  men;  neither 
are  they  plagued  like  other  men." 

The  critical  period  of  Job's  trial  is  in  his 
thought  and  possible  action  over  that  fact.  It  is 
but  one  step  from  the  perception  of  such  fact  to 


70  JOB 

saying,  "It  does  not  pay  to  serve  God."  Had  Job 
really  come  to  that  conclusion  Satan  would  have 
won  his  case  and  could  have  replied  to  Jehovah: 
"There,  3'ou  see  Job  doth  not  serve  God  for 
naught — as  soon  as  his  pay  for  serving  you  is 
taken  away  from  him  he  is  ready  to  curse  thee  to 
thy  face — ready  to  become  a  pessimist."  Now, 
that  Job's  moral  fortunes  hung  trembling  on  this 
pivot  is  beyond  question.  Elihu  discerned  it,  and 
one  of  Elihu's  merits  is  that  he  called  Job's  at- 
tention sharply  to  his  danger.  He  tells  him  that 
he  is  "in  companj'  with  workers  of  iniquity  and 
walketh  with  wicked  men,"  because  he  said,  "It 
profiteth  a  man  nothing  that  he  should  delight 
himself  with  God." 

It  was  only  necessar}^  to  go  on  practically  from 
that  position,  theoretically  assumed,  and  Satan 
had  his  game. 

But  not  all  speculative  trouble  takes  root  in 
character.  Much  of  it  onl}'  lingers  in  the  realm 
of  temptation  and  never  ripens  into  fruit.  Job 
was  evidentl}^  rudely  jostled  from  his  moral 
equilibrium  by  the  thought  of  the  prosperity  of 
the  wicked,  but  he  did  not  deny  God;  he  still 
held  fast  to  him  whether  he  was  paid  or  not  for 
his  service,  held  fast  still  in  spite  of  the  blind- 


JOB  71 

ing  confusion  of  his  own  wretchedness  to  the 
onward  fiow  of  existence!  Sometimes  we  wish 
we  could  stand  still  in  order  that  we  might  make 
adjustment  in  our  trouble.  But  we  cannot  stop. 
Forward  march,  is  the  order,  and  if  we  do  not 
step  we  are  crowded  along.  There  is  merc}^  in 
the  order.  If  we  stood  still  we  should  fall.  We 
would  like  to  sit  in  quietness  and  enjoy  "the 
luxury  of  woe."  But  the  rude  slamming  of  a 
door  reminds  us  that  we  must  arise  and  put  the 
house  in  order  to  stand  against  the  gusts  of  a 
summer  storm,  and,  heaven  be  praised!  we  can 
never  get  back  to  our  reverie  of  sadness  again. 

God  does  not  always  temper  the  wind  to  the 
shorn  lamb.  Sometimes  he  blows  him  over  a 
ledge  where  the  force  of  the  wind  is  broken. 
Usually  something  is  done.  In  our  temptations 
other  suggestions  are  pushed  along,  and  in  at- 
tending to  them  the  temptation  slides  into  the 
past,  never  to  renew  its  power, — perhaps  never 
to  return,  or  if  to  return,  to  find  a  new  and 
stronger  adversary  to  it  in  possession  of  the  soul. 

Job  was  not  an  irrational  man.  The  speech 
of  Elihu  must  have  influenced  him.  It  had 
potency  to  check  him  so  that  he  must  have  said 
with  himself:  "No,  no,  I  can't  quite   say  that  I 


72  JOB 

will  not  serve  God  unless  he  give  me  the  reward 
of  prosperity  for  it — not  quite  that." 

But  Elihu's  words  have  no  sooner  died  away 
than  something  else  occurs  to  give  him  thought. 
All  things  are  not  at  a  stand-still  even  over  the 
sands  of  Arabia.  "The  voice  of  the  Lord"  is 
heard  in  thunder.  The  clouds  mount  up  in 
blackness  on  the  horizon. 

"  His  chariots  of  wrath  the  deep  thunder  clouds 
form, 
And  dark   is  his    path   on  the  wings  of  the 
stoim." 
A  tornado  comes  up   apace!     What  can  man 
do  against  its  might?     Yet  it  is  under  the  con- 
trol of  God. 

"Without  his  high  behest 
It  shall  not  in  the  mountain  pine 
Disturb  the  sparrow's  nest." 

May  it  not  be  that  man's  wisdom  falls  as  far 

short  of  God's  wisdom  as  man's  power  does  of 

his  power?  Who  shall  contend  with  the  Almighty 

about  anything?  who   measure    himself  against 

him  in  any  matter?     What  is  my  "iniquity"  to 

the  perfection — the   beauty   of    the    holiness    of 

God? 

"Behuld  T  am  vile. 

0  Infinite  Glory  of  righteousness! 

1  have  uttered  what  I  understood  not." 


JOB  73 

"I  have  heard  of  thee  by  the  hearing  of  the 
ear;  but  now  mine  eye  seeth  thee.  Wherefore 
I  abhor  myself  and  repent  in  dust  and  ashes." 
There  is  a  new  attitude!  No  request  for  a  vin- 
dicator of  the  integrity  of  past  days— only  the  in- 
spiration of  longing  for  a  righteousness  that 
might  be. 

Now  perhaps  we  might  go  back  to  the  begin- 
ning and  run  up  the  curtain  on  that  upper  stage 
and  ask  the  cynic,  Satan,  how  it  is  with  this 
man  Job,  who,  he  said,  would  not  serve  God  un- 
less for  pay.  Tell  us  how  your  test  has  come 
out.  Have  things  come  to  pass  as  you  said 
the}^  would?  Is  this  man  in  the  humiliation  of 
dust  and  ashes  over  the  feeling  of  his  moral 
poverty  in  the  sight  of  God  the  sort  of  man  you 
predicted  he  would  be  if  you  could  visit  him 
with  tribulation .?  Does  it  not  look  as  though 
there  were  a  root  in  his  nature  that  you  had  not 
calculated  upon  ;  that  the  man  loves  righteousness 
for  itself  and  not  for  pay?  Yet  stay  a  moment 
longer.  The  three  friends  have  had  time  to 
reflect  as  well  as  Job,  and  things  have  changed 
somewhat  with  them.  They  say  to  Job:  '^Inthe 
heat  of  our  argument  we  charged  you  with  sin 
wrongfully;  whether  you  are  a  sinner  or  not, we 


74  JOB 

are,  for  we  have  put  the  worst  construction  pos- 
sible on  your  case;  pray  for  us  that  impending 
woe  may  not  strike  us." 

Now,  Satan,  look  at  this  man,  still  in  his 
misery,  not  a  cloud  of  misfortune  drifting  from 
him,  forgetting  himself  in  his  anxiety  for  his 
friends,  "lifting  up  holy  hands  without  wrath  or 
doubting,"  and  say  if  man's  relations  with  man 
are  always  selfish,  if  even  in  his  own  dire  ex- 
tremity man  may  not  sometimes  think  of  others 
rather  than  himself;  if  the  game  of  life  is  al- 
ways— every  man  for  himself;  if  there  may  not 
be  genuine  unselfish  service  of  man  as  well  as 
of  God. 

And  now,  Satan,  we  will  ring  down  the  cur- 
tain on  you.  Your  experiment  has  failed  over 
both  the  great  realms  of  religion — the  relation- 
ship which  man  has  to  God  and  that  which  he 
has  to  man. 

Job  began  a  man  of  integrity  and  he  has  come 
out  with  a  hunger  and  a  thirst  for  a  greater  in- 
tegrity, which  will  only  grow  into  greater  mas- 
tery of  his  being  as  "the  years  of  eternity  roll." 

He  began  with  kindness  to  man  and  he  has 
come  out  of  his  tribulation  with  undistinguishing, 
unselfish,  forgiving  love. 


JOB  75 

The  book  of  Job  reaches  intellectually  the 
conclusion  that  in  suffering  as  well  as  in  every- 
thing else  there  will  be  elements  beyond  the 
power  of  human  resolution.  But  it  reaches  also 
a  higher  spiritual  plane  in  the  conclusion  that 
men  can  look  over  any  unknown  in  unselfish- 
ness and  loving  trust.  It  comes  fairly  into  the 
flush  of  the  dawn  of  a  spiritual  day  where — 
"Nevertheless,  not  my  will  but  thine  be  done" 
is  sunlight. 

That  rare  saint,  Cowper,  breathed  the  atmos- 
phere of  that  high  spiritual  day: 

"Judge  not  the  Lord  by  feeble  sense. 
But  trust  him  for  his  grace; 
Behind  a  frowning  providence 
He  hides  a  smiling  face. 

"Blind  unbelief  is  sure  to  err 
And  scan  his  work  in  vain; 
God  is  his  own  interpreter 
And  he  will  make  it  plain," 


IV. 

JONAH. 

I  INTEND  herein  to  treat  of  the  literary  form  of 
the  book  of  Jonah,  and  to  comment  on  its  ethics. 

In  what  department  as  literature  does  it  fall? 
I  think  it  is  plainly  comedy.  It  is  meant  to  be 
satire,  light  and  kindly,  on  the  Hebrew  proph- 
ets. The  idea  of  satirizing  the  prophets  may 
strike  us  unfavorably.  It  may  give  a  rude  jostle 
to  the  feeling  of  reverence  which  we  have  for  the 
most  prominent  characters  in  the  Old  Testament. 

But  we  must  give  our  idea  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  a  much  wider  range  than  is  common. 
We  have  derived  our  notion  of  the  prophets  from 
the  specimens  we  have  in  the  Bible.  But  we 
must  remember  that  they  have  secured  our  ven- 
eration because  they  are  instances  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  out  of  a  very  numerous  class.  The 
prophet  was  not  so  rare  a  personage  in  Israel  as 
we  are  accustomed  to  think.  The  function  of  a 
Hebrew    prophet    was    in    large   degree,  if  not 

76 


JONAH  77 

raainly,  political.  The  prophets  whose  works 
have  survived  to  us  were  Israel's  statesmen. 
The  fires  that  burned  within  them  were  primarily 
patriotic.  They  were  not  the  clergymen  of 
Israel,  The  priest  more  nearly  represented  the 
minister  among  us. 

The  Catholic  church  and  its  congeners,  the 
old  churches  of  the  East,  call  thrir  ministers 
priests.  That  shows  how  the  analogies  lie  as 
between  the  religious  officials  of  the  Hebrew 
people  and  the  larger  divisions  of  the  Christian 
church.  The  continuous  line  in  religion,  from 
Israel  through  to  us,  is  largely  by  way  of  the 
priest.  The  prophets  that  have  survived  to  us 
have  come  to  their  prominence  in  religion  be- 
cause in  dealing  with  their  problems  of  state  they 
tried  to  find  and  la}'  foundations  in  everlasting 
right.  There  was  a  right  way  for  the  nation  and 
there  was  aright  way  for  the  people  of  a  nation. 
"Righteousness  exalteth  a  nation, but  sin  is  a  re- 
proach unto  any  people,"  may  well  summarize 
the  common  spirit  in  the  genius  of  the  Biblical 
prophets.  It  is  out  from  that  common  factor,as 
they  wrought  at  their  various  problems  of  state, 
that  their  religious  inspiration  comes  to  us. 

But  think  of  the  prophets  as  primarily  engaged 


78  JOf^AH 

with  questions  of  state  and  there  are  some  results 
which  we  can  work  out  ourselves  as  inherently 
likely  to  ensue.  There  will  be  prophets  and 
prophets — prophets  of  all  sorts — prophets  false 
as  well  as  prophets  true — prophets  of  all  kinds 
of  burdens,  i.  e.,  all  sorts  of  policies  for  all 
political  exigencies — prophets  of  wisdom  and 
prophets  of  folly — prophets  of  righteousness  and 
prophets  of  lies. 

Statesmen  survive,  and  so  we  have  the 
prophets  of  Scripture.  But  where  there  is 
one  statesman  there  are  ten  politicians,  and 
demagogues  innumerable.  You  have  only  to 
read  the  Old  Testament  to  find  that  Israel  was 
distracted  by  the  multitude  of  his  advisers,as  we 
are.  There  were  eras  when  everybody  seemed 
to  have  a  bee  in  his  bonnet  and  when  all  were 
shouting  together  their  political  nostrums.  Par- 
ties were  formed,  as  with  us,  over  questions  of 
political  economy  or  of  national  or  international 
state-craft. 

The  three  tailors  of  Grub  Street  who  issued 
their  manifesto — "We  the  people  of  England" — 
could  have  found  apt  precedent,  doubtless,  in 
the  stirring  times  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel.  In 
Jeremiah  you  can  read: 


JONAH  79 

"For  every  one  from  the  least  even  to  the 
greatest  is  given  to  covetousness;  from  the 
prophet  even  unto  the  priest  every  one  dealeth 
falsely.  For  they  have  healed  the  hurt  of  the 
daughter. of  my  people  slightl}^  sa3'ing,  Peace, 
peace;  when  there  is  no  peace.  We  looked  for 
peace  but  no  good  came,  and  for  a  time  of  health 
and  behold  trouble.  The  snorting  of  horses  was 
heard  from  Dan,  the  whole  land  trembled  at  the 
sound  of  the  neighing  of  his  strong  ones." 

That  does  not  read  so  verj'  different  from  ex- 
periences within  our  own  memory.  Some  said 
there  would  be  no  war;  that  the  whole  matter 
would  be  over  in  sixty  days. 

Some   said    let    the    erring    sisters    depart  in 

peace,  and  some  said  they  were  even  justifiable 

in  attempting  to  break  up  the  nation.      So  they 

each  prophesied  in  his  several   way.     But  there 

were  prophets  of  other  vision. 

"We  wait  beneath  the  furnace-blast 
The  pangs  of  transformation; 
Not  painlessly  doth  God  recast 
And  mould  anew  the  nation. 

Hot  burns  the  fire, 
Where  wrongs  expire, 
Nor  spares  the  hand 
That  from  the  land 
Uproots  the  ancient  evil." 


80  JOhlAH 

We  had  our  prophets  and  we  had  to  choose 
among  them  as  did  ancient  Israel,  I  do  not 
know  that  the  principles  of  choice  were  essenti- 
ally different  in  the  two  cases. 

Back  in  Deuteronomy  you  find  that  Israel  had 
his  constitution  in  the  recognition  of  Jehovah  as 
the  governing  God  of  his  nation,  and  that  the 
setting  up  the  worship  of  any  other  divinity  was 
treason  to  the  state,  because  it  laid  the  founda- 
tion for  breaking  it  up.  An  act  of  that  sort  was 
just  like  firing  on  the  flag  at  Fort  Sumter. 
Down  in  Isaiah  you  find  exactly  the  doctrine  of 
Washington's  farewell  address — "to  avoid  en- 
tangling alliances"  with  other  nations.  And 
throughout  all  the  prophets  of  the  Bible  you  find 
insistence  on  the  fact  which  is  borne  in  upon  us, 
that  a  moral  nation  is  mighty.  The  prophets  of 
Israel  were,  then,  dealing  with  problems  not  es- 
sentially different  from  our  own  and  under  con- 
ditions like  our  own.  It  was  perhaps  as  hard  to 
tell  in  that  day  who  was  a  prophet  as  it  is  in  ours 
to  tell  who  is  a  statesman.  It  is  pretty  clear  now 
that  Washington  was  a  patriot  and  a  statesman. 
But  in  his  day  there  was  more  than  one  cabal 
against  him  that  had  the  ear  of  the  people.  The 
average  prophet  of    Israel  was  a  politician,  the 


JONAH  81 

* 

great  prophet  was  a  statesman,  and  the  little  one 
was  a  demagogue.  It  was  aahard,  probably,  for 
the  people  to  tell  what  ought  to  be  done  in  their 
national  crises  as  it  is  now  for  us  to  tell  what  we 
ought  to  do  with  shouting  on  this  hand  and  on 
that  for  free  trade  and  for  protection,  for  high 
license,  low  license  or  no  license,  for  a  gold 
basis  and  for  a  silver  basis  and  for  no  basis  at 
all,  for  government  control  and  for  anything  but 
government  control.  You  have  only  to  read  the 
prophets  that  have  survived  to  us  to  be  sure  that 
Israel  had,  as  well  as  we,  a  din  of  conflicting 
interests,  policies  and  nostrums. 

Now  give  such  a  state  of  affairs  and  a  satirist 
will  arise.  Some  cool  head  will  look  over  the 
situation,  will  see  clearly  the  wrong  to  be  re- 
sisted, the  right  to  be  assisted  and  the  blown 
bubbles  to  be  punctured.  It  has  always  been  so. 
Truth  and  right  have  taken  as  much  from  satire 
as  from  any  other  intellectual  or  moral  agency. 
No  squadron  in  the  field  did  so  much  to  over- 
throw slavery  as  the  Bigelow  and  the  Petroleum 
V.  Nasby  papers.  They  turned  the  laugh  against 
it,  and  when  an  institution  gets  to  be  ridiculous 
its  days  are  numbered. 

Nobody  knew  how    to  wield   the   weapon  of 


82  ^  JONAH 

satire  better  than  the  Hebrew  prophets.  Juvenal 
himself  pales  in  causticity  before  Elijah  as  seen 
in  his  contest  with  the  prophets  of  Baal.  Isaiah 
the  great  and  the  grand — Websterian  in  his  sus- 
tained power — relieves  the  "inevitable"  onward 
march  of  his  thought  with  shafts  of  ridicule.  But 
there  are  satirists  and  satirists.  According  to 
theme  or  condition  of  the  times  or  trait  of  nature, 
you  will  find  this  satirist  strenuous,  that  playful. 
Juvenal  bites — he  is  exactly  sarcastic,  he  goes 
for  the  flesh  of  his  victim,  he  strikes  to  draw 
blood.  Washington  Irving  is  always  sportive, 
genial — the  laugh  is  as  far  as  he  wants  to  go. 

I  think  the  book  of  Jonah  falls  into  the  class 
satire  of  the  latter  sort.  Whoever  wrote  Jonah 
meant  satire  on  the  prophets  as  Lowell  meant 
satire  on  the  politicians  of  the  day  of  the  Bige- 
low  papers,  only  the  strokes  m  Jonah  are  of 
lighter  touch  than  even  those  of  Lowell.  If  any 
one  wants  to  understand  Jonah  I  would  advise 
him  to  read  the  masterpieces  of  wit  till  his  sense 
of  humor  has  become  supple — read,  sa3',"The 
Vicar  of  Wakefield," "Knickerbocker's  History 
of  New  York"  and  "The  Pickwick  Papers,"  for 
they  are  specimens  of  the  kindly  humorous 
satire  I  conceive  to  be  illustrated  in  the  book  of 


JONAH  83 

Jonah.  Whatever  be  the  facts  of  the  history  of 
a  man  called  Jonah,  they  are  treated  by  the  book 
before  us  very  much  as  Goldsmith  treats  Dr. 
Primrose.  You  love  Dr.  Primrose,  but  he  has 
a  genius  for  blundering.  You  reverence  him 
for  his  good  will  and  devoutness,  but  a  smile  of 
sympathy  goes  over  to  the  side  of  the  "neer-do- 
weel"  prisoners  who  make  up  faces  at  him  and 
play  pranks  at  his  expense  while  he  delivers  to 
them  long  homilies  on  virtue.  But  everything 
goes  well  in  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  as  you 
know.  The  good  all  grow  better  and  the  bad 
repent.  The  same  humorous,  kindly  spirit  seems 
to  dominate  over  every  person  and  every  con- 
dition in  the  book  of  Jonah.  Nobody  is  hurt 
in  it  from  beginning  to  end — save  one  poor  little 
squash  vine.  Everybody  save  Jonah  is  always 
on  his  best  temper. 

Take  the  sailors.  According  to  their  notions 
they  were  in  danger  of  shipwreck  because  they 
had  a  man  delinquent  to  his  duty  to  his  God  on 
board  their  ship.  Jonah  confessed  that  he  was 
the  cause  of  their  trouble. 

He  was,  to  them,  a  foreigner.  They  would 
hardly  be  thought  under  obligations  to  have 
much  respect  or  care  for  him.      But   the  spirit 


84  JONAH 

that  afterward  wrought  in  the  good  Samaritan 
lived  in  their  rough  bosoms.  They  were  nobly 
human.  They  were  not  responsible  for  the  sug- 
gestion to  throw  him  overboard.  That  was 
Jonah's  own  direction.  The  quaint  record  runs: 
"Then  they  said  unto  him,  What  shall  we  do 
unto  thee,  that  the  sea  may  be  calm  unto  us? 
for  the  sea  wrought  and  was  tempestuous.  And 
he  said  unto  them.  Take  me  up  and  cast  me  forth 
into  the  sea;  so  shall  the  sea  be  calm  unto  you; 
for  I  know  that  for  my  sake  this  great  tempest 
is  upon  you.  Nevertheless  the  men  rowed  hard 
to  bring  it  to  land,  but  they  could  not,  for  the 
sea  wrought  and  was  tempestuous  against  them. 
Wherefore  they  cried  unto  the  Lord,  and  said. 
We  beseech  thee,  O  Lord,  we  beseech  thee,  let 
us  not  perish  for  this  man's  life  and  la}'  not  upon 
us  innocent  blood;  for  thou,  O  Lord,  hast  done 
as  it  pleased  thee." 

That  is  not  to  be  beaten  in  literature  for  expres- 
sion  of  gentility  under   difficult   circumstances. 

The  fish  himself  is  well  behaved.  After  hav- 
ing given  Jonah  the  hospitalities  of  the  deep  for 
a  reasonable  length  of  time,  he  puts  him  safe 
on  shore.  There  is  nothing  mean  about  the  fish. 

As  to  the  inhabitants  of   Nineveh — did   a  re- 


JONAH  85 

former  ever  find  people  so  tractable  under  his 

hand? 

Surely  the  prophets  who  prophesied  in  Israel 
for  righteousness  would  have  been  glad  to  find 
something  of  the  "sweet  reasonableness"  that 
characterized  the  Ninevites  in  the  stiff  necked, 
hard  hearted  and  dull  minded  crowd  with  which 
they  had  to  deal.  Every  one,  from  king  to 
beggar,  fell  to  in  reformation  at  his  best  will. 
They  "turned  every  one  from  his  evil  way 
and  from  the  violence  that  was  in  his  hands." 
The  world  never  saw  such  a  renovation  in  so 
short  a  time.  The  men  suffered  no  grass  to  grow 
under  their  heels  till  they  became  good.  The 
women  did  not  stop  in  their  moral  house  clean- 
ing to  look  in  the  glass  or  to  look  at  what  they 
had  done  till  they  had  got  everything  snug  and 


nice. 


So  Nineveh  easily  passed  moral  muster.  A 
tolerable  sort  of  sinner— those  Ninevites,  Pity 
that  the  stock  is  extinct;  that  the  only  record 
we  have  showing  the  existence  of  such  beings 
as  are  willing  to  repent  on  notice  given  exhibits 
them  in  the  fossil  state.  Somehow  the  law  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  ought  not  to  have  run 
against  them. 


86  JOhlAH 

The  character  of  Jonah  is  so  peculiar  that  you 
can  hardly  suppose  it  to  be  drawn  except  in 
satire.  He  is  as  big  a  blunderer  as  Handy 
Andy.  But  there  is  an  element  of  avvryness 
always  about  his  blundering.  While  everybody 
else  in  the  story  mentioned  is  good-natured,  he 
loses  his  temper,  gets  moodj^,  sour  and  sulky. 

Told  to  go  to  Nineveh,  he  pulls  down  to  Joppa. 
When  the  message  again  comes  to  go  to  Nineveh 
it  evidently  discomposes  him,  and  he  goes  and 
delivers  it  in  the  curtest  style  possible.  All  he 
says  is,  "Yet  forty  days  and  Nineveh  shall  be 
overthrown.''  It  is  afterward  disclosed  that  be- 
fore he  went  he  knew  of  a  contingency,  which 
happening,  Nineveh  might  not  be  overthrown. 
He  kept  this  contingency  to  himself,  said  nothing 
about  it  in  the  proclamation  of  his  message,  and 
then  gets  angry  because  that  occurred  which  he 
suspected  might  occur.  The  contingenc}'  was 
nothing  less  than  the  possibility  that  the  people 
of  Nineveh  might  repent  and  so  escape  destruc- 
tion. But  the  repentance  of  Nineveh  was  not 
what  Jonah  wanted.  He  wanted  to  see  it  come 
down,  and  because  it  did  not  the  record  runs, 
"It  displeased  Jonah  exceedingly  and  he  was 
very  angry."     So  angry  that  he  besought  God 


JONAH  87 

to  take  his  life  from  him,  saying,  "It  is  better 
for  me  to  die  than  to  live."  When  a  man  is 
fairly  angry  about  one  thing  he  very  quickly 
gets  out  of  sorts  with  everything.  This  fact 
comes  out  further  along  in  the  little  matter  of 
the  gourd.  When  that  had  withered,  "God 
said  to  Jonah,  Doest  thou  well  to  be  angry  for 
the  gourd?  And  he  said,  I  do  well  to  be 
angr}^,  even  unto  death."  Did  you  ever  hear  a 
great  booby  boy  (have  we  not  been  such  our- 
selves?) when  some  one  spoke  kindly  to  him, 
in  a  fit  of  the  sulks  blurt  out  peevishness  and 
stuffiness  in  reply?  Well,  that  is  Jonah's  state 
after  the  withering  of  the  gourd. 

And  now  mark  you  that  it  is  in  that  state  that 
you  leave  Jonah.  The  curtain  is  rung  down  on 
him  in  that  condition.  The  laugh  even  of  con- 
tempt is  on  him.  That  is  a  reason  why  I  think 
he  is  a  figure-head  of  satire.  God  sometimes 
uses  a  poor  stick  for  a  messenger;  sometimes, 
but  rarely,  a  surly, crabbed  churl.  As  I  am  dis- 
cussing only  the  probabilities  of  the  literary 
mode  of  the  book,  I  have  nothing  to  do  further 
with  the  facts  or  fates  of  Jonah.  In  the  main 
he  is  not  a  lovely  character  or  we  do  not  catch 
him  in  a  lovely  mood.     The    best    that    can   be 


88  JONAH 

said  of  him  is  that  he  did  pa}^  his  fare  to  Tar- 
shish.  In  the  stress  of  the  storm  he  told  the  truth 
to  the  sailors.  He  did  not,  however,  tell  what 
he  knew  to  be  the  whole  truth  in  his  proclama- 
tion to  Nineveh. 

There  is  one  portraiture  more  in  this  book 
at  which  we  must  look,  and  it  is  that  of  God. 
We  are  no  longer  students  or  even  readers  of 
the  Old  Testament — more's  the  pity.  I  know 
not  how  it  is  that  we  have  dispensed  so  easily 
with  the  Old  Testament,  for  therein  are  delinea- 
tions of  the  Deity  that  one  does  not  well  see  how 
the  human  heart  can  forego.  God  comes  out 
everywhere  in  the  book  of  Jonah,  tender,  gentle, 
with  the  heart  of  a  mother. 

You  might  suppose  that  the  wrath  of  God 
would  relentlessly  pursue  one  who  ran  away 
from  his  plain  duty. 

But  after  giving  Jonah  strange  experiences 
and  time  to  think  the  matter  over,  God  simply 
suggests  the  old  duty  again:  "Arise,  go  unto 
Nineveh,  that  great  city,  and  preach  unto  it  the 
preaching  that  I  bid  thee."  (Septuagint  aorist, 
'^  which  I  before  bade  thee.")  But  no  word,  no 
hint  of  reproach  for  the  deflection  from  the 
former  command. 


JONAH  89 

The  next  stroke  of  the  brush  on  the  picture  is 
one  put  on  by  the  Ninevites. 

Paul  in  his  speech  at  Athens  uses  the  expres- 
sion: "That  they  should  seek  the  Lord,  if  haply 
they  might  feel  after  him  and  find  him/'  Paul 
might  well  have  caught  up  his  expression  from 
the  description  of  the  mental  process  of  the  king 
of  the  Ninevites:  "Let  them  turn  every  one  from 
his  evil  way  and  from  the  violence  that  is  in  his 
hands.  Who  can  tell  if  God  will  turn  and  re- 
pent and  turn  away  from  his  tierce  anger,  that 
we  perish  not?"  For  this  thought  remember, 
too,  that  they  were  indebted  to  no  suggestion  of 
Jonah.  Respecting  that  condition  of  affairs  the 
author  of  the  book  writes  thus:  "And  God 
saw  their  works,  that  they  turned  from  their 
evil  ways;  and  God  repented  of  the  evil  he 
said  he  would  do  unto  them,  and  he  did  it  not." 
The  next  touch  upon  the  picture  is  laid  on  by 
Jonah:  "O  Lord,  was  not  this  my  saying  when 
I  was  yet  in  my  country?" 

That  is  to  say,  I  knew  beforehand  that  you 
would  pardon  the  penitent.  "Therefore  I  fled 
before  unto  Tarshish;  for  I  knew  that  thou  art 
a  gracious  God,  and  merciful,  slow  to  anger  and 
of    great    kindness,    and    repentest    thee  of   the 


90  JONAH 

evil."  To  that  accusation  the  Lord  simply  re- 
plied like  a  mother  to  a  pouting  child:  "Doest 
thou  well  to  be  angry?"  Then  followed  a  little 
schooling,  tenderlj'  Executed,  as  related  in  the 
gourd  episode,  and  to  Jonah's  continued  and 
increased  ill-temper  a  repetition  of  the  gentle 
question:  "Doest  thou  well  to  be  angry  for  the 
gourd?"  To  Jonah's  response,  pettish  to  silli- 
ness, you  find  this  reply  which  closes  the  book: 
"Then  said  the  Lord:  Thou  has  had  pity  on 
the  gourd  for  which  thou  hast  not  labored, 
neither  madest  it  grow,  which  came  up  in  a 
night  and  perished  in  a  night;  and  should  not  I 
spare  Nineveh,  that  great  city, wherein  are  more 
than  six  score  thousand  (120,000)  persons  that 
cannot  discern  between  their  right  hand  and 
their  left  hand  (babies),  and  also  much  cattle?" 
Now  I  want  to  fasten  attention  on  that  por- 
traiture of  God  on  two  points.  Please  remem- 
ber that  it  is  from  the  Old  Testament  that  you 
get  the  description  of  God  as  "the  Lord,  the 
Lord  God,  merciful  and  gracious, long-sufTering, 
and  abundant  in  goodness  and  truth,  keeping 
mercy  for  thousands  and  forgiving  iniquity, 
transgression  and  sin;"  and  then  ask  yourself  if 
that  wealth  of  tenderness  of  spirit  was  not  ex- 


JONAH  9^ 

hibited  without  break  to  Jonah  ;  if  long-suffering 
toward  one  unworthy   of    graciousness    was  not 
just  what  was  shown  throughout  all  his  experi- 
ences.   Could  love  leave  a  bad  disposition  more 
tenderly  than  by  a  question    which    would  set  it 
thinking?     Farewell,    Jonah,    how    did  you  an- 
swer   that    question?     Why  is   it  unanswered? 
Why  just  there  did  the  old  Hebrew  author  lay 
down  his  pen?  Yet  stay, we  will  give  Jonah  one 
chance  for  moral    standing.      If,  after   his   dis- 
cipline   was    over,  he  repented    and    wrote  this 
book    about    himself  he  shall    rank    among  the 
good  that  are  very  great.     A  man  that  satirizes 
his    own    sin    is    out  of  its  toils.      One  who  can 
see  his  own  meanness  and  without  flinching  set 
it    forth,  is  worthy  of  the   highest    honor  in  the 
kingdom    of    God.     Were  you  so  great,  Jonah  ? 
Then  pass  up  to   imperishable  moral   grandeur. 
The  next  time,  my  friend,  you   are   in    a  city 
of  six  hundred  thousand  to  a  million  of  inhabit- 
ants, and,  "in   the    silent     midnight    watches," 
ask  yourself  the  question  whether  there  is  at  the 
heart  of  things  any  sympathy  with  the  actual  or 
possible  sufferings  of  its  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  infants,  it  may  steady  your  mind  over 
a  tendency  to  a  depressing  skepticism  to  remem- 


92  JONAH 

ber  the  firm  answer  given  to  your  query  accord- 
ing to  the  book  of  Jonah,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tigris,  five  and  twenty  centuries  ago. 

Nay  more,  you  will  think  of  the  same  answer 
when  the  storms  of  winter  beat,  and  your  ques- 
tion runs  out  to  include  all  sentient  beings. 
Back  from  Nineveh  of  old,  over  the  long  reach 
of  time,  will  come  the  loveliest  picture  ever 
limned  by  man,  of  One  "whose  tender  mercies 
are  over  all  his  works."  Instead  of  an  idle  grin 
when  the  book  of  Jonah  is  mentioned,  cannot  we 
substitute  emotions  that  come  from  the  convic- 
tion that  in  that  book  we  have  a  masterpiece  of 
literature,  and  a  representation  of  the  character 
of  God  that  by  its  very  forth-setting,  in  its  sim- 
plicity and  loveliness,  will  forever  charm  and 
capture  the  human  heart? 


ISAIAH. 

Question  of -the  duplicate  or  composite  au- 
thorship of  the  writings  grouped  under  the  title 
Isaiah,  are  deferred  for  treatment  later  on.  I 
deal  here  with  the  book  of  Isaiah  as  it  stands 
before  us  in  the  Bible,  and  as  it  comes  to  us  out 
of  tradition,  as  a  literary  unit. 

The  apostle  Peter,  for  some  purpose  that  he 
had  before  him,  uses  the  expression:  "The 
world  that  then  was."  That  is  just  the  expres- 
sion we  want  to  employ  if  we  turn  our  thoughts 
on  the  times  of  Isaiah.  "The  world  that  then 
was!"  Think  where  you  would  be,  and  who 
would  be  your  companions,  and  what  would  be 
going  on  around  you,  if  you  could  be  transported 
back  into  the  eighth  centurj'  before  Christ  and 
look  on  the  world  that  lay  before  the  vision  of 
Isaiah.  You  would  not  only  be  under  other 
skies,  but  other  nations  and  even  other  races 
would  be  the  prominent  actors  on  the  historic 
93 


94  ISAIAH 

Stage.  You  must  go  up  past  the  history  of  any 
and  all  of  the  nations  of  modern  Europe,  past 
Roman  and  Greek  history,  and  you  would  find 
yourself  in  that  strange  old  world  where  Egyp- 
tians and  Assyrians  and  Chaldeans  are  acting 
the  drama  of  individual  and  national  life.  The 
Semite  and  the  Hamite  are  on  the  stage.  The 
children  of  Japheth  are  still  largely  nomads, 
hovering  on  the  borders  of  the  great  Nilitic  and 
Mesopotamian  civilizations. 

Away  at  the  east,  and  perhaps  here  and  there 
among  Semites  and  Hamites,  can  be  seen  a 
fringe  or  an  outcrop  of  that  primitive  Turanian 
stock  concerning  whom  we  may  ask,  whose 
children  are  they?  and  hear  our  question  die 
away  answerless  in  the  distance. 

Some  of  the  historic  landmarks  of  the  life  of 
Isaiah  are  clear.  He  wrote  in  "the  days  of 
Uzziah,  Jotham,  Ahaz  and  Hezekiah,  kings  of 
Judah."  The  death  of  Hezekiah  is  placed  in 
the  year  698  B.  C.  But  the  historic  circum- 
stances are  such  that  Isaiah,  if  then  living,  must 
have  been  a  very  old  man.  We  shall  not  be 
greatly  in  error  if  we  place  his  birth  about  780 
B.  C.  We  may  regard  the  period  of  his  man- 
hood's activity  as   about   synchronous    with  the 


ISAIAH  95 

latter  half  of  the  eighth  century  B.  C.  But  this 
is  about  as  far  back  as  we  can  go  and  get  solid 
footing  in  the  history  of  the  nations.  Isaiah's 
birth  dates  probably  about  the  time  of  the  first 
Greek  Olympiad,  776  B.  C.  The  Greeks  have 
aggregated  into  some  little  states,  but  their  his- 
toric attitudes  and  actions  are  not  clear.  It  is 
two  centuries  after  Isaiah's  time  before  you  strike 
the  days  of  Solon  and  Pisistratus.  According 
to  legend,  Rome  was  founded  in  753  B.  C. 
Isaiah  was  then  in  full  manhood  and  had  put 
forth  some  of  his  prophetic  writings,  and  might 
even  then  have  composed  some  of  his  historic 
work;  for  he  seems  to  have  written  chronicles 
of  the  kings  contemporary  with  himself — possi- 
bly his  history  took  a  wider  range. 

But  generations  are  to  pass  awa}^  before  you 
come  \o  Roman  history  upon  which  you  can 
place  dependence.  In  Isaiah's  time,  Egypt  and 
Assyria  divided  the  scepter  of  the  then  civilized 
and  historic  world.  Some  minor  nations  existed 
here  and  there,  but  rather  b}'  the  sufferance  of 
these  great  powers  than  otherwise.  Damascus 
was  a  city  and  a  kingdom,  but  it  owed  any  in- 
dependent life  to  its  isolation,  as  did  also  the 
kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Judah.     At  one  time  in 


96  ISAIAH 

the  later  years. of  Isaiah,  Babylon  came  forth  to 
dispute  the  supremacy  with  Nineveh.  Mero- 
dach  Baladan  established  and  for  a  while  main- 
tained the  independence  of  Babylon,  But  his 
later  career  was  disastrous.  The  Assyrian  at 
Nineveh  was  the  stronger,  and  the  ascendency 
of  Bab3''Ion  must  lie  in  abeyance. 

In  Egypt  such  kings  as  Necho  I.  and  Psam- 
metichus  reigned.  Necho  II.  reigned  toward 
the  end  of  the  century  in  which  Isaiah  died. 
He  certainly  has  been  excelled  by  few  monarchs 
in  enterprise.  He  caused  the  whole  division  of 
Africa  to  be  circumnavigated.  There  is  no  rec- 
ord of  a  re-performance  of  that  feat  from  the 
time  of  Necho  II.  to  that  of  Vasco  de  Gama, 
A.  D.  1497.  Necho's  sailors  were  three  years  in 
making  the  voyage  from  the  head  of  the  Red 
Sea  round  to  the  mouth  of  the  Nile.  Herodotus 
tells  the  story,  but  refuses  it  his  credence  because 
the  sailors  said  that  when  they  doubled  the  ex- 
tremity of  the  continent  they  had  the  sun  on 
their  right  or  north  of  them. 

It  may  well  be  that  the  massive  stone  works, 
whose  recent  discovery  in  Mashonaland  aston- 
ishes us,  are  the  result  of  the  enterprise  proceed  • 
ing  from  Egypt  or  Arabia  in  this  era. 


ISAMH  97 

There  reigned  in  Nineveh  during  the  lifetime 
of  Isaiah  such  sovereigns  as  Tiglath-pileser, 
Shalmaneser,  Sargon,  and  Sennacherib — men 
of  capacit}^  for  all  affairs  from  war  to  literature. 
They  carried  on  campaigns  east  and  west,  and 
patronized  learning  at  home.  Much  of  the 
sculpture  now  exhumed  from  the  site  of  ancient 
Nineveh  to  startle  and  charm  us  with  the  power 
of  its  expression  and  the  nicety  of  its  execution, 
dates  from  their  reigns.  We  are  also  finding  the 
libraries  they  founded,  and  can  read  on  their 
brick  tablets  the  history  of  their  exploits  and 
also  the  philosophy  taught  in  the  schools  of  their 
times.  We  read  in  the  Bible  about  the  destruc- 
tion by  pestilence  of  the  army  of  Sennacherib, 
or  perhaps  rather  of  a  detachment  of  it,  as  it 
lay  among  the  hills  of  Judea  for  the  purpose  of 
besieging  Jerusalem.  The  germ  theory  of  dis- 
ease granted,  this  miracle  becomes  a  tame  prob- 
ability, from  corrupted  water  suppl}^ 

We  take  on  all  the  prejudices  of  the  people 
and  prophets  of  Judah  against  Sennacherib. 
There  are  few  of  us   who  have  not  committed: 

"The  Assyrian  came  down  like  the  wolf  on  the 

fold. 
And  his  cohorts  were  gleaming   in   purple  and 

gold. 


98  ISAIAH 

The  might  of  the  gentile,  unsmote  by  the  sword, 
Hath  melted   like    snow    in    the   glance   of   the 
Lord." 

We  now  have  the  privilege  of  reading  the 
library  of  Sennacherib, and  we  find  that  certainly 
in  some  respects  he  was  a  gentleman.  It  is  of  him 
we  have  the  record  that, finding  some  army  officer 
had  in  some  way  aspersed  him,  he  said  he  would 
pay  no  attention  to  him;  that  he  was  a  person 
of  low  breeding  and  mind,  and  no  gentleman 
would  take  any  notice  of  what  he  said.  You 
find  back  here  the  truth  illustrated:  "In  all 
ages  every  human  heart  is  human" — even  that 
which  beats  beneath  the  crown  of  a  king. 

Think  not  enterprise  and  pluck  and  daring 
are  the  ofTspring  of  these  later  modern  times. 
There  was  much  going  on  within  and  among 
the  nations  then.  Vast  armies  were  raised, 
equipped  and  supported  for  war.  Merchant 
caravans  went  in  and  out  of  Nineveh  to  and 
from  the  frontiers  of  China  and  India  for  trade. 
Trains  of  dromedaries  and  camels  and  horses 
and  asses  were  winding  through  mountain  de- 
files and  across  deserts  ir  every  direction,  and 
vessels  were  tempting  the  perils  of  unknown 
waters. 


ISAIAH  99 

The  nations  were  bravel}^  astir.  They  had 
their  ambitions  and  their  dreams  of  manifest 
destiny.  Judah  was  caught  by  the  spirit  of  the 
times  and  whirled  along  in  the  way  it  led. 
Whereto  tends  the  spirit  of  the  age?  a  philoso- 
pher would  have  asked,  and,  what  are  the  por- 
tents for  my  land?  would  be  the  inquisition  of  a 
patriot. 

Given  stirring  times,  and  great  men  will  ap- 
pear in  them.  Some  will  lead  the  forces  of  the 
day,  and  some,  more  scholarly  and  thoughtful, 
will  tell  whereto  the  forces  lead.  Of  this  latter 
class  was  Isaiah,  the  Seer.  If  persistence  in  in- 
fluence is  any  criterion  by  which  to  judge, count 
off  a  dozen  of  the  world's  great  men  and  among 
them  you  must  put  Isaiah.  But  who  was  he? 
We  cannot  give  much  of  an  answer  to  that 
question,  except  by  putting  in  evidence  his  liter- 
ary work.  His  father's  name  is  given  and  that  is 
all  you  can  find  of  his  ancestral  genealogy.  He 
seems  to  have  had  children,  to  whom  he  gave 
names  carr3Mng  in  them  the  core  of  his  political 
philosophy,  insights  and  vaticinations.  But  of 
them  we  hear  nothing.  The}^  bore  the  names 
their  father  gave  them,  but  they  seem  to  have 
inherited  none  of  his  genius.   As  to  official  rank, 


100  ISAIAH 

he  seems  to  have  been  no  more  than  a  court  his- 
torian. What  became  of  him?  No  one  knows. 
There  is  a  dim  tradition  that  it  is  to  him  that  the 
author  of  the  Hebrews  alludes  as  he  describes 
the  sufferings  of  the  old  martyrs — "They  were 
sawn  asunder."  That  would  seem  to  be  the  best 
that  his  contemporaries,  after  his  long  life, could 
think  of  to  do  with  him.  While  he  lived  he 
was  "a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness."  There 
is  one  touch  of  his  writings  which  shows  he 
must  have  been  a  much  hated  man.  He  paints 
the  scorn  and  derision  with  which  his  words 
were  received. 

You  can  see  the  very  upturned  noses  and  up- 
lifted brows  and  side  rolling  eyes  of  the  crowd 
as  they  express  contempt  for  his  utterances. 
Let  me  paraphrase  a  little  and  you  can  see 
this,  and  see  also  the  clear  conception  and  the 
steady  will  by  which  he  was  supported. 

"To  whom  will  he  teach  knowledge,  ana  to 
whom  will  he  impart  instruction?  That  fellow 
is  just  fit  to  teach  weaning  babes — those  just 
taken  from  the  breast.  It  is  a  perpetual  drizzle 
of  the  same  thing  right  over  and  over,  precept 
upon  precept,  precept  upon  precept,  command 
upon  command,  command  upon  command,  a 
little  here  and  a  little  there." 


ISAIAH  101 

The  original  of  this  is  said  to  be  a  piece  of 
word  painting  describing  the  very  jabber  of  the 
crowd  in  their  contemptuous  comment  on  the 
speeches  of  the  prophet.  But  there  is  pluck  in 
the  man, for  he  catches  up  their  very  balderdash 
and  hurls  it  back  upon  them.  "It  may  be  with 
stammering  lips  and  a  strange  tongue  that  I 
speak  to  this  people.  But  there  is  one  who  says: 
This  is  the  way  of  rest;  give  rest  to  the  weary. 
This  is  the  way  to  safety.  But  you  will  not 
hear.  You  shall  find  the  very  word  of  Jehovah 
shall  come  to  you:  Precept  upon  precept, 
precept  upon  precept,  command  upon  command, 
command  upon  command,  a  little  here  and  a 
little  there." 

Silence  has  settled  now  on  all  the  jeering  of 
that  crowd.  But  the  voice  of  "the  one  crying 
in  the  wilderness,"  w»ith  his  "stammering  lips" 
and  his  "strange  tongue,"  fills  the  earth. 

First  and  foremost,  Isaiah  was  a  politician  and 
a  statesman.  It  happened  then,  as  it  does  now, 
that  the  first  men  were  not  called  to  fill  the  first 
places.  But  then,  as  now,  a  patriot's  light  could 
not  be  hid.  Isaiah  had  a  manifest  destiny  before 
his  view  for  his  nation.  He  had  a  definite  policy 
both  for  the  people   at   home   and  for  their  con- 


J  02  ISAUH 

nections  with  surrounding  nations.  His  home 
policy  in  the  humane  sense  was  democratic  to 
the  core.  A  man  was  a  man  whatever  his 
fortunes.  His  home  policy  may  be  defined  as 
an  effort  to  make  the  most  and  the  best  of  every 
man.  The  quiver  of  those  who  have  fought  the 
battles  of  personal  liberty — of  individual  liberty, 
has  always  been  stuck  full  oL  arrows  from  the 
armory  of  Isaiah.  Whittier,  as  the  poet-prophet 
of  the  rights  of  man,  had  his  prototype  in  Isaiah. 
A  generation  ago,  and  especially  during  the 
war,  this  had  some  meaning  to  us: 

"Cry  aloud,  spare  not,  lift  up  thy  voice  like  a 
trumpet,  and  show  my  people  their  transgres- 
sion, and  the  house  of  Jacob  their  sins.  Yet 
they  seek  me  daily,  and  delight  to  know  my 
ways,  as  a  nation  that  did  righteousness,  and 
forsook  not  the  ordinances  of  their  God;  they 
ask  of  me  the  ordinances  of  justice;  they  take 
delight  in  approaching  to  God. 

"Wherefore  have  we  fasted,  say  they,  and 
thou  seest  not?  Wherefore  have  we  afflicted 
our  soul,  and  thou  takest  no  knowledge? 

"Behold,  in  the  day  of  your  fast  ye  find 
pleasure,  and  exact  all  your  labors.  Behold,  ye 
fast  for  strife  and  debate,  and  to  smite  with  the 


ISAMH  103 

fist  of  wickedness;  ye  shall  not  fast  as  ye  do 
this  day,  to  make  your  voice  to  be  heard  on 
high.  Is  it  such  a  fast  that  I  have  chosen?  a 
day  for  a  man  to  afflict  his  soul?  Is  it  to  bow 
down  his  head  as  a  bulrush,  and  to  spread  sack- 
cloth and  ashes  under  him?  Wilt  thou  call  this 
a  fast,  and  an  acceptable  day  unto  the  Lord? 
Is  not  this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen?  to  loose 
the  bands  of  wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy 
burdens,  and  to  let  the  oppressed  go  free,  and 
that  ye  break  every  yoke?  Is  it  not  to  deal  thy 
bread  to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou  bring  the 
poor  that  are  cast  out  to  thy  house?  when  thou 
seest  the  naked,  that  thou  cover  him;  and  that 
thou  hide  not  thyself  from  thine  own  flesh? 
Then  shall  thy  light  break  forth  as  the  morning, 
and  thy  health  shall  spring  forth  speedily;  and 
thy  righteousness  shall  go  before  thee;  the 
glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  thy  rearward.  Then 
shalt  thou  call,  and  the  Lord  shall  answer;  thou 
shalt  cry,  and  he  shall  sa}',  Here  I  am.  If  thou 
take  away  from  the  midst  of  thee  the  yoke,  the 
putting  forth  of  the  finger,  and  the  speaking  of 
vanity;  and  if  thou  draw  out  thy  soul  to  the 
hungry,  and  satisfy  the  afflicted  soul;  then  shall 
thy  light  rise  in  obscurity,  and  th}'-  darkness  be 


104  ISAIAH 

as  the  noon  day;  and  the  Lord  shall  guide  thee 
continually." 

It  is  much  to  have  supplied  freedom  with  its 
watchwords  and  battle-cries  in  its  contests 
through  the  ages.  Long  j^ears  ago,  when  the 
blood  of  men  quivered  and  throbbed  with  pas- 
sion for  human  rights,  when  we  had  not  sunk 
to  the  low  level  of  this  dead  day  when  there  is 
no  conscience  on  that  subject,  when  the  highest 
moral  aspiration  men  seem  to  have  is  to  grasp 
some  one  by  the  throat,  saying,  "Pay  me  that 
thou  owest,  and  a  little  more,"  I  heard  William 
Lloyd  Garrison.  The  point  and  fire  of  his  ut- 
terance came  to  climax  in  quotation  from  Isaiah  : 

"Wherefore  hear  the  word  of  the  Lord,  ye 
scornful  men,  that  rule  this  people.  Because  ye 
have  said.  We  have  made  a  covenant  with  death, 
and  with  hell  are  we  at  agreement;  when  the 
overflowing  scourge  shall  pass  through,  it  shall 
not  come  upon  us;  for  we  have  made  lies  our 
refuge,  and  under  falsehood  have  we  hid  our- 
selves. Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  God, 
Judgment  also  will  I  lay  to  the  line,  and  right- 
eousness to  the  plummet,  and  the  hail  shall 
sweep  away  the  refuge  of  lies,  and  the  waters 
shall  overflow  the  hiding  place,  and  your  cove- 


ISAIAH  1C5 

nant  with  death  shall  be  disannulled,  and  your 
agreement  with  hell  shall  not  stand;  when  the 
overflowing  scourge  shall  pass  through,  then  ye 
shall  be  trodden  down  by  it.  From  the  time 
that  it  goeth  forth  it  shall  take  you;  for  morn- 
ing by  morning  shall  it  pass  over,  by  day  and 
by  night;  and  it  shall  be  a  vexation  only  to  un- 
derstand the  report.  For  the  bed  is  shorter  than 
that  a  man  can  stretch  himself  on  it;  and  the 
covering  narrower  than  that  he  can  wrap  him- 
self in  it.  For  the  Lord  shall  rise  up  as  in  Mt. 
Perazim,  he  shall  be  wroth  as  in  the  valley  of 
Gibeon,  that  he  may  do  his  work,  his  strange 
work,  and  bring  to  pass  his  act,  his  strange 
act.-'  So  spake  this  old  Israelite  patriot,  with 
"thoughts  that  breathed  and  words  that  burned." 
But  Isaiah  was  something  more  than  a  home 
politician,  he  was  a  statesman  of  international 
magnitude.  His  foreign  policy  was  that  of 
Washington.  The  government  was  to  avoid 
"entangling  alliances"  with  any  of  the  nations 
round  about.  "Woe  unto  them  that  go  down 
to  Egypt  for  help,  and  stay  on  horses  and  trust 
in  chariots,"  is  familiar.  But  it  indicates  the 
genius  of  his  whole  system.  Judah  would  go 
down  with  the  going  down   of  any  nation    with 


106  ISAIAH 

whom  it  might  be  allied.  Let  the  nations  round 
about  fight  their  own  battles.  If  the  best  were 
done  for  every  man,  and  every  man  made  the 
most  and  the  best  of  himself,  and  all  were  in- 
spired with  a  patriotism  which  rested  in  recog- 
nition of  Jehovah  and  in  obedience  to  him,  and 
in  loving  enthusiasm  for  his  righteousness,  the 
nation  might  abide  in  security  in  its  hill  fast- 
nesses. 

This  was  Isaiah's  international  policy.  It  did 
not  prevail,  and  the  history  of  Israel  became 
what  it  was — foreign  alliances,  failure  therein, 
conquest,  captivity,  deportation,  dispersion. 

But  Isaiah's  vision  was  not  confined  to  the  re- 
lations of  Judah  to  other  nations.  He  looked  in 
on  those  nations  themselves  and  had  mastery  of 
their  politics.  He  seems  to  have  understood  the 
forces  that  were  operating  in  Egypt  and  Assyria 
and  in  the  lesser  states,  and  to  have  clearly  dis- 
cerned whereto  they  were  leading.  His  "bur- 
dens" respecting  all  the  nations  (for  he  allowed 
the  aflairs  of  no  one  to  escape  his  inspection) 
are  the  result  of  his  convictions  respecting  the 
set  of  the  tide  of  destin}'  within  and  around 
them.  You  feel  as  you  read  his  prophecies 
respecting  Nineveh  and  Babylon   and  Egypt — 


ISAIAH  1(.7 

here  is  a  man  who  looks  in  on  the  problems  of 
these  nations  as  Edmund  Burke  looked  in  on 
the  French  Revolution,  or  Charles  Sumner  on 
American  slavery.  In  one  of  Mr.  Webster's 
greatest  speeches,  that  on  the  Revolution  in 
Greece,  he  causes  to  pass  before  you  a  summary 
of  all  European  politics  of  that  date.  But  if  you 
will  read  the  collected  woiks  of  Isaiah  you  will 
find  the  same  kind  of  work  done  for  you  re- 
specting the  politics  of  the  civilized  world  in 
the  eighth  century  before  Christ.  You  will  see 
the  things  that  are  about  to  be  in  those  nations 
according  to  the  vision  of  a  cosmopolitan  states- 
man. This  is  to  be  said  for  Isaiah  too — intense 
Judaist  patriot  that  he  is,  his  sympathies  are  not 
confined  to  his  own  nation  but  embrace  all  peo- 
ples. 

Israel  has  the  most  precious  inheritance, to  be 
sure,  but  Israel  holds  it  in  trust  for  all  mankind. 

There  is  hardly  a  generous,  heroic  impulse  for 
the  welfare  of  men  but  that  can  find  its  coin  of 
expression  already  minted  in  the  words  of  Isaiah. 
Isaiah  is  an  optimist,  not  for  Israel  only,  but  for 
man.  "I  have  been  found  by  those  who  sought 
me  not.  Every  valley  shall  be  exalted  and  every 
mountain   and   hill    be    made   low,  the  crooked 


108  ISAIAH 

shall  become  straight  and  the  rough  places  plain, 
for  the  glory  of  Jehovah  shall  be  revealed,  and 
all  flesh  shall  see  it  together." 

If  ever  there  is  ''the  parliament  of  man,  the 
federation  of  the  world,"  it  will  go  to  Isaiah  for 
a  design  and  motto  for  its  seal.  [Design:  Beasts 
wild  and  tame  tethered  together;  a  little  child 
leads  them.  Legend:  They  shall  not  hurt  nor 
destroy.  (?)]  The  last  ideal  of  philosophy — the 
full,  sympathetic,  co-operating  brotherhood  of 
man — finds  its  expression. 

"The  wolf  aiso  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and 
the  leopard  shall  lie  down  with  the  kid;  and  the 
calf  and  the  young  lion  and  the  fatling  together; 
and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them.  And  the  cow 
and  the  bear  shall  feed;  their  young  ones  shall 
lie  down  together;  and  the  lion  shall  eat  straw 
like  the  ox.  And  the  sucking  child  shall  play 
on  the  hole  of  the  asp,  and  the  weaned  child 
shall  put  his  hand  on  the  cockatrice'  den.  They 
shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy,  in  all  my  holy  moun- 
tain." 

I  want  to  call  attentio.n  to  the  one  solitary 
cause  out  of  which  all  this  is  to  spring:  "For 
the  earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Lord  as  the  waters    cover  the  sea."     That  one 


IS/IMH  109 

conception  of  the  one  governing  God,  realized, 
that  shall  mould  men  to  the  last  blessed  result  of 
universal  love. 

Isaiah  knew  the  necessity  of  theism  as  a  basis 
for  philanthropy. 

I  would  like  to  speak  of  Isaiah  as  a  poet,  but 
the  topic  is  difficult  to  treat.  It  is  hard  to  define 
poetry,  hard  to  detect  and  understand  it  in  un- 
familiar forms  clear  across  race  lines.  We  ought 
to  enlarge  our  conception  of  poetry.  Poetry 
may  exist  in  prose  as  well  as  under  rhyme  and 
meter.  Whatever  can  carry  the  feelings  and 
satisfy  the  imagination  is  of  poetic  order.  Isaiah 
is  to  be  rated  as  one  of  the  first  of  poets,  not  be- 
cause he  wrote  according  to  the  laws  of  old 
Hebrew  parallelism,  but  because  he  carries  the 
imagination  and  the  feelings  on  the  tide  of  his 
speech. 

You  will  detect  this  element  of  force  in  all 
that  I  have  before  quoted.  And  you  have  only 
to  open  Isaiah  at  random  and  read, and  you  will 
soon  see  that  you  are  caught  and  borne  onward 
in  poetic  onflow. 

"Alas!  a  tumult  of  many  nations! 

Th^y  rage  with  the  raging  of  the  sea. 

Alas!  a  roaring  of  kingdoms! 

They  roar  with  the  roaring  of  mighty  waters. 


110  IS/ilAH 

Like  the  roaring  of  mighty  waters  do  the  nations 

roar. 
He  rebuketh  them  and  they  flee  awa}^ 
Driven  like  the  chaff    of   the   mountains  before 

the  wind, 
Like  stubble  before  the  whirlwind. 

"Ho,  thou  land  of  rustling  wings 

Beyond  the  rivers  of  Ethiopia  I 

That  sendest  thy  messengers  upon  the  sea. 

In  reed  boats  upon  the  face  of  the  waters. 

Go,  ye  swift  messengers,   to   a   nation    tall   and 

fair, 
To  a  people  terrible  from  the  first  and  onward, 
To  a  mighty,  victorious  people. 
Whose  land  is  divided  by  rivers." 

We  can  feel  and  see  the  course  of  thought  and 
action  here. 

But  there  is  one  other  test.  Music  is  allied 
to  poetr3\  If  there  is  poetry  anywhere  in  lan- 
guage,music  will  detect  it  and  use  it.  Have  you 
ever  heard  the  oratorio  of  the  Messiah?  Well, 
please  to  remember  that  oratorio — perhaps  there 
is  no  greater  musical  composition  of  man — goes 
to  Isaiah  for  its  language  of  expression,  owes 
its  existence  to  the  inspiration  of  that  language, 
was  born  to  try  to  express  the  Isaian  idea.  The 
soul  of  the  great  musician  met  its  kin  onl}^  in 
the  poetry  of  the  soul  of  this  old  Hebrew 
prophet. 


ISAIAH  HI 

Yes,  hear  the  oratorio,  and  as  you  are  rapt 
by  the  great  chorus,  "For*  unto  us  a  child  is 
born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given;  and  the  govern- 
ment shall  be  upon  his  shoulders;  and  his  name 
shall  be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The 
Mighty  God,  The  Everlasting  Father,  The 
Prince  of  Peace,"  realize  that  music  and  poetry 
have  never  met  before  and  probably  never  will 
again  on  a  higher  plane;  and  send  back  to  the 
old  Hebrew  prophet-poet  a  heart  pulsation  of 
gratitude  for  the  enobling  rapture  which  is  yours 
to  enjoy  and  henceforth  is  to  delight  and  sanctify 
the  children  of  men. 

But  what  shall  I  say  about  this  "master  in 
Israel"  in  religion?  He  goes  by  the  name  of 
the  evangelical  prophet — the  gospel  prophet. 
What  good  news  is  there  in  religion  which  he 
did  not  proclaim?  No  apostle  of  Christ  has  ex- 
plained the  principles  of  his  religion  better  than 
this  prophet  did  seven  hundred  years  before 
Christ  appeared.  In  fact,  you  turn  to  the  writ- 
ings of  this  prophet  rather  than  to  any  New 
Testament  description  for  a  summary  of  the 
fates  and  fortunes  of  the  Saviour.  The  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah  has  dictated  to  Christendom  its 
conception  of  Christ.   You  think  of  the  Saviour 


112  ISAIAH 

in  Isaiah's  terms  rather  than  those  of  any  of  his 
contemporaries  or  of  his  successors.  Whether 
men  have  rightly  interpreted  his  meaning  or 
not, the  phrase  of  Isaiah  has  held  the  field.  That 
is  a  marvelous  piece  of  writing — the  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah: 

"Who  hath  believed  our  report?  and  to  whom 
is  the  arm  of  the  Lord  revealed? 

"For  he  shall  grow  up  before  him  as  a  tender 
plant,  and  as  a  root  out  of  a  dry  ground;  he 
hath  no  form  nor  comeliness;  and  when  we  shall 
see  him,  there  is  no  beauty  that  we  should  de- 
sire him. 

"  He  is  despised  and  rejected  of  men  ;  a  man  of 
sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  grief;  and  we  hid 
as  it  were  our  faces  from  him;  he  was  despised, 
and  we  esteemed  him  not.  Surely  he  hath  borne 
our  griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows;  yet  we  did 
esteem  him  stricken, smitten  of  Godjand  afflicted. 
But  he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he 
was  bruised  for  our  iniquities;  the  chastisement 
of  our  peace  was  upon  him;  and  with  his  stripes 
we  are  healed.  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone 
astray;  we  have  turned  every  one  to  his  own 
way;  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity 
of  us  all. 


ISAIAH  113 

"He  was  oppressed,  and  he  was  afflicted,  yet 
he  opened  not  his  mouth;  he  is  brought  as  a 
lamb  to  the  slaughter,  and  as  a  sheep  before  his 
shearers  is  dumb,  so  he  openeth  not  his  mouth." 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  seven  hundred 
years  afterward  an  officer  of  the  court  of  Ethio- 
pia said  to  Philip:  "I  pray  thee,  of  whom 
speaketh  the  prophet  this?  of  himself  or  of  some 
other?"  It  has  been  the  standing  question  of 
six  and  twenty  centuries.  No  language  uttered 
by  man  has  provoked  more  thought  than  this 
familiar  yet  strange  utterance  of  Isaiah.  You 
may  say  the  whole  body  of  theology  for  eighteen 
centuries  has  grown  out  from  it  and  been  grouped 
around  it. 

But  if  theology  has  depended  upon  the  fifty- 
third  of  Isaiah,  religion  certainly  has  upon  the 
fifty-fifth.  What  would  be  the  function  of  a  Chris- 
tian minister  to-day  if  he  could  not  give  this  in- 
vitation ?  "Ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth, come  ye 
to  the  waters,  and  he  that  hath  no  money,  come 
ye,  buy  and  eat;  yea,  come,  buy  wine  and  milk 
without  money  and  without  price."  In  what  lan- 
guage can  a  Christian  minister  frame  expostu- 
lation other  than  this?  "Wherefore  do  ye  spend 
money  for  that  which  is  not  bread?    and  your 


114  ISAIAH 

labor  for  that  which  satisfieth  not?  hearken  dili- 
gently unto  me,  and  eat  ye  that  which  is  good, 
and  let  your  soul  delight  itself  in  fatness.  Incline 
your  ear,  and  come  unto  me;  hear,  and  your 
soul  shall  live." 

How  shall  a  Christian  minister  frame  an  ex- 
hortation except  in  these  terms?  "Seek  ye  the 
Lord  while  he  may  be  found,  call  ye  upon  him 
while  he  is  near." 

The  gospel,  if  it  is  gospel  at  all,  is  a  procla- 
mation of  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  Has  that 
proclamation  ever  been  put  in  a  way  better  than 
this  to  cheer  and  strengthen  and  encourage  a 
downcast,  sin-troubled  soul?  "Let  the  wicked 
forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous  man  his 
thoughts;  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord, and 
he  will  have  mercy  upon  him;  and  to  our  God, 
for  he  will  abundantly  pardon."  Put  that  with 
this  from  the  first  chapter:  "Though  your  sins 
be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow ; 
though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall  be 
as  wool,"  and  you  have  the  full  gospel  of  the 
forgiveness  of  sins. 

There  is  a  political  stamp  upon  the  religion 
of  Isaiah  and  it  comes  about  in  this  way — it  is 
so  feasible  "to  cease   to   do  evil  and  to  learn  to 


ISAIAH  115 

do  well,"  and  God's  tender  mercies  are  so 
abounding  that  there  is  no  reason  why  any  man 
should  die.  Everybody  can  be  saved  and  Isaiah 
wants  to  save  everybody.  He  wants  to  gather  up 
all  the  people,  not  simply  to  pluck  a  few  brands 
from  the  burning, but  to  save  the  nation.  "  O  God, 
give  me  Scotland  or  I  die!"  cried  John  Knox. 
That  was  the  feeling  of  Isaiah — "I  want  Israel, 
all  Israel;  yea,  even  I  crave  the  world  for  right- 
eousness." 

So  you  can  see  how  religion  and  patriotism 
and  philanthropy  came  to  be  welded  together  in 
the  soul  of  this  great  man. 

But  time  runs  against  us.  We  must  leave  our 
subject,  great  and  absorbing  as  it  is.  How  ut- 
terly inadequate  is  such  a  sketch  to  give  com- 
prehension of  this  great  prophet  of  Israel! 

A  lecture  on  the  anatomy  of  the  human  hand 
fails  to  set  forth  the  significance  of  the  hand  of 
your  friend.  To  know  that,  you  must  grasp  it 
in  connection  with  the  life  to  which  it  belongs. 
You  must  know  the  meaning  of  the  heart  pulsa- 
tions that  send  forth  to  it  its  power  of  cunning 
mystery  or  ministry  of  love.  The  hand  has 
significance  only  as  you  have  it  in  connection 
with  the  total  personality — mind,  disposition, 
sentiment — to  which  it  belongs. 


116  ISAIAH 

We  snatch  a  verse  or  a  chapter  from  out  the 
works  of  the  great  poet,  prophet,  statesman,  and 
say,  Behold  Isaiah!  Oh,  no!  You  cannot  be- 
hold Isaiah  unless  you  restore  his  whole  problem. 
You  need  to  construct  the  living  man — need  to 
see  him  in  connection  with  the  politics  and 
moral  condition  of  his  nation — need  to  know  the 
setting  of  that  nation  amid  the  surrounding  na- 
tions— need  to  know  the  mental  and  moral 
forces  at  work  among  all  the  then  civilized  na- 
tions of  the  earth — need  to  cast  a  sharply  scru- 
tinizing glance  on  the  dark,  portentous  outlying 
barbarisms  whose  troops  of  horsemen  sometimes 
alread}^  ride  up  to  the  gates  of  cities  plethoric 
with  wealth — need  some  such  broad  outlook  be- 
fore the  foundations  of  acquaintance  with  Isaiah 
can  be  laid. 

No  text  or  section  of  his  writings  can  reveal 
him.  We  want  the  whole  man  in  the  totality  of 
his  relations. 

Some  one  goes  down  to  Nahant,  stoops  down 
and  takes  up  a  handful  of  water.  It  came  from 
the  sea,  but  it  is  not  the  sea.  Look  up  and  out; 
there,  farther  than  the  eye  can  pierce,  farther 
even  than  imagination  can  steadily  guide,  lies 
the  sea,  "the   restless,    seething   sea,"  the    sea 


ISAIAH  117 

Stretching  its  long  arms  out  and  clasping  the 
full  earth  round,  tumbling  in  its  own  freedom, 
heaving  with  its  own  might,  billowing,  welter- 
ing, the  unfathomable  sea,the  universal  sea — one 
great  whole. 

It  is  as  useless  to  try  to  cramp  Isaiah  into 
miniature  sketch  as  would  be  the  attempt  so  to 
treat  the  sea.  Yet  he  is  happy  who  often  looks 
out  on  the  sea,  and  Isaiah. 

Voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness!  un- 
heeded in  thine  own  time,  thou  art  not  unheard 
in  this.  Thou  hast  our  hearts  to-day,  and  shall 
yet  have  as  thine  own  the  love  and  the  rever- 
ence of  the  children  of  men. 

NOTE. 

Up  to  date,  I  am  not  carried  by  the  higher 
criticism  on  Isaiah.  I  will  mention  some  of  the 
reasons  that  weigh  with  me  in  reaching  this  de- 
cision. 

Strike  out  "Cyrus,"  as  a  proper  name,  and 
insert  in  lieu  thereof  "Kurush,"  or  "Koresh," 
as  a  general  term,  like  Pharaoh,  Tzar  or 
Konig,  and  you  have  knocked  the  blocking 
from  beneath  the  main  contention  of  the  higher 
criticism.     But   so   to  treat    the  term  "Cyrus," 


118  ISAIAH 

is  only  to  do  what  has  ah'eady  been  done  with 
"Tartan,"  and  "Rabshekah."  They  are  not 
proper  names,  but  designations  of  offices.  The 
Revised  Version  so  treats  these  names,  and  lays 
the  foundation  for  similar  treatment  of  "Cyrus," 
by  its  marginal  reading,  "Kurush." 

Of  course  this  argument  cuts  both  ways.  It 
not  onl}^  overturns  a  main  pillar  of  the  higher 
criticism,  but  it  gives  the  coup  de  main  to  the 
old  argument  for  inspiration  from  the  fact  (as- 
serted) that  Cyrus  was  called  by  name,  by  the 
prophet  Isaiah, generations  before  he  was  born. 
But  that  was  an  inherently  unworthy  argument, 
since  it  put  inspiration  in  the  attitude  of  playing 
a  game  of  historic  bopeep.  Cyrus  was  not  such 
a  providential  man  either  generally,  or  specific- 
ally so  far  as  the  Jews  were  concerned,  as  that 
he  should  be  singled  out  as  the  solitary,  or  even 
the  leading  instance  of  this  sort  of  vaticination. 
On  the  face  of  the  case,  Darius  was  as  worthy 
of  pre-mention  as  Cyrus. 

If  Chapter  xxxix.  of  Isaiah  is  good  for  any- 
thing as  history,  then,  in  the  lifetime  of  the  first 
Isaiah,  Merodach-Baladan,  king  of  Babylon, 
made  an  alliance  with  Hezekiah,  king  of  Judah. 

Sayce  is  authority  for  saying  that  at  that  time 


ISAMH  119 

Merodach-Baladan  was  in  alliance  with  powers 
beyond  the  Tigris — (Kurushes?).  Granted  that 
the  first  Isaiah  knew  anything  about  the  politi- 
cal combinations  of  his  time,  and  you  have  a 
foundation  laid  for  all  that  is  said  about  a 
''Kurush."  In  his  exultation  in  God,  Isaiah 
cries  out:  "He  saith  of  the  deep,  B^dry;"  "He 
saith  of  a  Kurush,  You  are  my  shepherd." 

The  philosophy  is:  "Man's  extremity  is  God's 
opportunity" — a  Kurush  from  beyond  the  Tigris 
can  "perform  all  my  pleasure." 

Out  of  general  conditions  special  agencies 
will  be  found. 

This  treatment  of  the  term  "Cyrus,"  reduces 
the  section  xl.-lxvi.  to  harmony  with  itself,for 
Cyrus  is  the  solitary  proper  name  in  the  whole 
section.  Generalize  this  name  and  you  have 
taken  away  the  force  of  the  argument  for  a 
second  Isaiah,  derived  from  the  fact  that  the 
author  seems  personally  acquainted  with  the 
historic  C3'rus. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  suppose  that  Isaiah  of 
Jerusalem,  as  Matthew  Arnold  calls  him,  knew 
what  was  going  on  about  him  to  lay  a  founda- 
tion for  this  reference  to  a  "Kurush,"  or  for 
any  other  coloring   in   respect  to  time  or  event 


120  ISAIAH 

of  seemingly  later  date.  Is  it  not  better  to  load 
a  good  deal  more  on  Isaiah's  knowledge  and 
less  on  his  subjective  psychoses  or  on  inspira- 
tion? Isaiah  ought  to  be  regarded  as  the 
Edmund  Burke,  the  Daniel  Webster  or  the 
James  G.  Blaine  of  his  time — a  man* who  knew 
the  forces  working  in  his  own  nation  and  in  the 
nations  round  about,  and  whereto  they  tended. 
When  the  Turks  had  taken  Adrianople  and 
the  adjacent  territory  in  Europe,  it  would  not 
have  required  extraordinary  mental  processes  to 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  Constantinople  must 
also  fall;  though  it  was  a  hundred  years  before 
that  event  happened.  The  problem  before 
Isaiah  in  respect  to  Jerusalem  was  substantially 
the  same  after  the  fall  of  Samaria  as  that  of 
Constantinople  after  the  fall  of  Adrianople. 
Jerusalem  must  go  the  same  way  Samaria  had 
gone.  The  power  is  in  the  East;  Jerusalem  is 
foredoomed;  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when 
the  end  will  come.  As  to  the  powers  in  Meso- 
potamia— Babylonia,  properly  called  (Sayce) — 
it  is  only  a  question  of  time  also  in  regard  to 
them  when  their  overthrow  must  come.  East 
of  the  rivers  was  the  coming  power.  The  Per- 
sian   stood  to  Nineveh   and    Babylon    much  as 


ISAIAH  121 

the  Goth  did  to  Greece  and  Rome  when  he  was 
crowding  on  the  Danube. 

The  wild,  strong  men,  in  either  case,  stood 
facing  the  rivers,  and  it  would  scarcely  take 
Divine  revelation  or  even  inspiration  to  tell 
what  would  happen.  The  destiny  was  manifest. 
The  strong  son  of  the  earth  beyond  the  Tigris 
will  bear  sway  over  all.  Jerusalem  will  fall, 
and  Babylon  will  fall. 

Why  not  let  Isaiah  know  something  about 
these  -prophetic  conditions  and  let  him  speak 
out  of  his  knowledge?  So  he  may  utter  the 
decrees  of  God. 

There  are  indications  that  Isaiah  was  a  man 
of  wide  and  close  observation.  "Ho,  to  the 
land  rustling  with  wings,  beyond  the  rivers  of 
Ethiopia'' — is  a  touch  Isaiah  could  hardly  have 
laid  on  his  canvas,  had  he  not  snared  and 
speared  fowl  on  the  hills  and  in  the  lakes  of 
Abyssinia,  as  they  converge  there  for  a  winter- 
home  in  their  retreat  from  Europe  and  Armenia. 
If  he  had  been  in  Abyssinia,  there  is  no  reason 
why  he  should  not  know  about  a  Kurush  beyond 
the  Tigris,  because  he  had  ridden  a  camel  in 
his  retinue  in  Persia  or  Bactria. 

Widen    out    this    man    Isaiah,  let  him  know 


122  ISAIAH 

something  b}^  observation  and  experience,  and 
you  have  diminished  the  difficulty  of  interpreting 
the  works  that  bear  his  name,  and  taken  away 
most  of  the  force  of  the  objections  to  their  unity. 
We  should  make  of  him  a  greater  man  than  we 
have  hitherto  allowed  him  to  be.  He  was  prob- 
abl}^  a  cosmopolite  in  fact  before  he  became  such 
in  theory.  That  is  the  natural  order  for  devel- 
opment like  his. 

One  objection  raised  by  some  of  the  higher 
critics  to  the  assignment  of  the  sections  xl.-lxxvi. 
to  Isaiah  of  Jerusalem,  is  so  simple  as  to  be 
charming.  The  objection  is  that  Isaiah  in  the 
time  of  Hezekiah  could  not  have  treated  of  a  re- 
turn when  no  captivity  had  taken  place.  It  is  even 
laid  down  as  a  canon  that  prophec}'  can  speak 
only  in  the  future  tense, not  in  the  future  perfect. 
It  seems  a  little  strange  that  Divine  inspira- 
tion cannot  do  as  much  as  the  natural  faculties 
of  man  can,  a  little  strange  that  it  could  not  run 
along  the  grooves  of  those  faculties.  We  have 
a  future  perfect  tense  and  we  are  all  as  volu- 
able  in  it  as  we  are  in  the  future.  We  work  not 
only  the  future  tense,  but  a  future  perfect  and  a 
paulo-post  future  perfect  in  vista  unlimited. 
There  are  few  of  us  who  have  lived  half  a  cent- 


ISAIAH  123 

ury  that  long  before  the  war  did  not  prophesy 
the  destruction  of  slavery  and  then  tr}-  our  powers 
on  the  problems  that  would  be  subsequent. 
There  is  a  goodly  number,  I  imagine,  who  have 
not  been  deprived  of  the  comfort  of  saying,  "I 
told  you  so,"  with  reference  to  something  on 
the  line  of  these  subsequent  problems.  But 
more,  the  objection  is  not  intelligent.  "Salva- 
tion by  the  remnant"  is  a  distinguishing  ele- 
ment in  the  works  of  Isaiah  of  Jerusalem.  To 
write  the  second  section,  xl.-lxvi.,  he  had  only 
to  elaborate  a  theme  already  burnt  in  upon  his 
soul. 

Arguments  for  diversity  of  origin  of  the  book 
of  Isaiah  from  literar}^  considerations,  as  style, 
etymology,  are  risky.  Three  thousand  years 
from  this  time  it  will  probably  be  argued  from 
literary  characteristics  that  Tennyson  could  not 
have  written  "The  Northern  Farmer,"  and  "In 
Memoriam." 

But  no  matter  what  the  literary  diversities 
may  be,  there  is  something  that  runs  beneath 
them  all  and  overcomes  all  their  force.  There 
is  a  psychological  unity  from  I.  to  LXVI. 
The  essential  ideas  that  underlie  the  works  of 
the  first  Isaiah,  underlie  the  work  of  the  second 


124  ISAIAH 

also.  The  scribes,  if  such  there  were,  who  put 
the  works  of  these  two  men  together  and  abol- 
ished one  of  them  were  well  witted.  There  is 
need  of  but  one.  The  essential  ideas  of  the 
second  Isaiah  in  the  great  "  Song  of  the  Return" 
were  reached  over  and  over  again  by  the  first. 
The  formula  of  the  first  Isaiah  is:  captivity 
(predicted),  return,  consequences — universal 
righteousness.  The  formula  of  the  second  is: 
captivity  (assumed),  return,  consequences — uni- 
versal righteousness. 

In  both  the  Messianic  conception  comes  in  as 
a  means  to  the  end  involved  in  the  universal 
ethical  consequences.  Suppose  in  the  one  place 
the  Messianic  idea  is  of  a  king,  in  the  other  that 
of  a  servant — what  of  it?  The  two  conceptions 
are  not  inherently  inconsistent.  It  may  be  the 
function  of  a  king,  sometimes  to  serve.  "Ich 
dien,"  is  the  motto  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  A 
crown  may  be  fore-doomed  to  tragedy.  There 
is  no  reason  why  the  same  mind  might  not  have 
entertained  even  diverse  ideas  in  different  stages 
of  its  career,  or  developed  now  one  function  of 
a  Messiah  and  now  another.  The  conception  of 
a  king  might  suit  "the  fiery  heart  of  youth;" 
something    less   forceful    and    strenuous,    more 


ISAIAH  125 

spiritual,  the  pensiveness  of  mellow  age.  The 
two  ideas  are  easily  adjustable  when  viewed  in 
the  large, indefinite  way  in  which  they  are  treated 
by  Isaiah. 

Why  should  not  Isaiah  of  Jerusalem  have 
sung  the  "Song  of  the  Return?"  He  was  so 
impenetrated  with  its  ideas  that  he  named  his 
son  "Shear-Jashub,"  "Remnant  shall  Return." 
Of  all  men  of  all  time  such  a  man  was  the  man 
to  write  this  song.  Section  xl.-lxvi.  is  merely 
"Shear  Jashub"  expanded.  Why  does  not  the 
rule  here  apply,  that  when  you  have  a  sufficient 
cause  for  an  effect,  one  more  natural  than  any 
other,  you  can  rest?  The  "Song  of  the  Return" 
is  wrought  in  miniature  again  and  again  in  the 
first  section. 

It  may  be  asserted  that  it  would  be  a  psycho- 
logical impossibility  for  the  "Song  of  the 
Return"  to  have  been  written  at  the  time  the 
captivity  was  verging  to  its  close  without  more 
marks  of  time,  place,  manner  and  condition  be- 
ing left  upon  it.  The  total  work  is  contempla- 
tive, indefinite,  philosophical — such  a  work  as 
one  would  write  for  an  exigency  conceived  to 
lie  in  the  future, not  for  one  then  pressing.  So 
indefinite  is  this  poem,  that  there  is  not  a  mark 


126  ISAMH 

about  it  to  tell  where  it  was  written,  whether  in 
Jerusalem,  Babylon  or  Damascus.  It  would 
be  impossible  for  an  old  man  even,  writing  at 
the  time  of  the  return,  or  on  the  eve  of  its  activ- 
ity, not  to  have  caught  up  some  thrill  from  the 
pulse  of  the  time,  and  to  have  made  a  call  on 
the  Jews  for  some  specific  acts  that  would  tend 
to  secure  the  success  of  the  return. 

Read  this  section  to  a  camp  of  over-land 
pioneers  of  forty-eight  on  the  plains  bound  for 
California,  or  of  fifty-nine  bound  for  Pike's 
Peak,  and  tell  them  it  was  a  call  upon  a  people 
to  execute  a  journey  under  circumstances  simi- 
lar to  their  own,  and  you  would  get  the  reply: 
"Go  to,  now,  there  is  nothing  natural  in  all 
this,  nothing  that  sounds  of  teamsters  driving  in 
the  oxen.  There  is  not  even  the  primitive  call 
in  it  to  get  up  a  company."  And  your  critics 
would  be  right.  There  is  not  a  thing  about  the 
section  from  beginning  to  end  adapted  to  a  liv- 
ing, pressing  exigency. 

Given  a  time  when  an  "enterprise  of  great 
pith  and  moment"  was  crowding  to  the  front, 
or  was  on  the  field,  in  view  of  its  demands,  the 
very  splendor  of  the  section  becomes  failure, 
profound   and   melancholy.      Instead  of   hitting 


ISAIAH 


the  exigency  of  the  return,  the  "Song  of  the 
Return"  always  ricochets  over  the  return  to 
come  down  on  the  great  universal  ethical  effects 
beyond.  The  work  is  such  as  a  man  would  do 
who  was  contemplating  a  disaster  to  his  nation, 
and  yet  could  not  give  up  the  thought  that  there 
was  something  about  that  nation  that  would  sur- 
vive and  ultimately  bless  all  mankind.  Isaiah 
had  optimism  enough  about  him  to  believe 

"That  good  shall  fall 
At  last,  far  off,  at  last  to  all, 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring." 

But  just  what  distinguishes  Isaiah  is  the  "far- 
offness"  of  his  contemplated  events.  No  man 
would  be  writing  in  this  way  in  Jerusalem  be- 
leagured,  or  in  Babylon  with  the  invincible 
Cyrus  bearing  down  upon  or  in  possession  of  it. 
But  a  man  would  write  in  Isaiah's  way  who  was 
contemplating  disaster  and  discipline  as  a  neces- 
sity for  Jerusalem  in  the  retributive  and  right- 
eous government  of  God,  out  from  which  must 
still  come  blessing  to  Zion  and  to  men. 

It  would  take  comment  on  the  whole  section 
in  minuteness  to  bring  out  the  force  of  the  fore- 
going suggestion.  But  read  Chap,  liii.— •"  Who 
hath  believed  our  report?'-  and  Chap.  Iv.—"  Ho, 
every    one    that    thirsteth,"  and  Chap.   Iviii. — 


128  ISAIAH 

"Cry  aloud,  spare  not,"  and  see  how  malapropos 
they  are  to  a  call  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  and  re- 
build its  walls.  In  such  state  of  affairs,  even  the 
very  first  word  in  the  section — "Comfort  yQ  my 
people" — is  a  false  note. 

The  people  with  whom  Zerubbabel,  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah  wrought  did  not  need  comfort,  they 
needed  a  gad.  The  generations  on  the  stage 
with  them  had  been  born  in  Babylonia.  What 
was  Jerusalem  to  them  or  they  to  Jerusalem? 
They  were  adjusted  to  Babylonia.  They  had 
thrived  there.  The  Jew  has  always  been  realis- 
tic enough  to  adapt  himself  to  circumstances. 
To  sacrifice  himself  by  going  back  to  Jerusa- 
lem, must  have  seemed  to  him  unpractical  ideal- 
ism. It  is  unthinkable,  that  a  great  man  living 
in  the  time  of  the  captivity  should  not  have  ut- 
tered a  call  for  some  specific  acts  adapted  to  the 
return,  even  that  he  should  not  have  appealed  to 
specific  men  to  have  ideals  worthy  of  their 
fathers.  There  is  nothing  of  all  this  in  the 
"Song  of  the  Return."  It  is  as  oblivious  of 
particulars  respecting  the  return  as  it  is  of  those 
pertaining  to  the  captivity.  On  the  theory  of 
the  higher  critics,  the  greatest  man  of  the  day 
sails  in  the  air  over  this  crisis  and  never  once 
touches  the  earth  to  adapt  himself  to  it. 


ISAIAH  129 

Credat  Jiidceiis  Amelia! 

When  3'Ou  come  to  the  matter  of  the  further 
disintegration  of  Isaiah  so  as  to  make  his  works 
a  collection  from  various  writers  at  different 
times,  I  can  only  say  that  I  am  not  impressed 
with  the  soundness  of  the  philosophy  or  scholar- 
ship which  attributes  the  great  literary  results 
which  mark  history  to  "the  fortuitous  concourse" 
of  intellects.  "Every  house  is  builded  by  some 
man." 

The  masterpieces  of  literature  are  the  outcome 
of  the  activity  of  the  world's  great  minds,  not 
the  collected  dribbling  of  an  infinity  of  small 
ones.  The  majestic  harmony  of  Isaiah  through- 
out never  tumbled  together  out  of  a  tendency, 
it  was  born  of  the  travail  of  one  great  soul. 
Isaiah  of  Jerusalem  could  write  what  passes 
under  his  name.  There  is  not  only  no  evidence 
to  show  that  any  one  else  did  write  anything 
attributed  to  him,  but  that  there  was  any  one  in 
being  who  could  write  it. 

The  Ncte  on  Isaiah  was  published  in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  Vol.    LH, 
p.  347,  April,  1895. 


VI. 

IMPRECATORY  PSALMS. 

What  are  called  Imprecatory  Psalms  are  often 
considered  a  great  stumbling  block  to  religion. 
We  take  for  consideration  the  moral  difficulties 
presented  by  such  Psalms.  If  all  our  troubles 
are  not  met  we  may  strike  a  drift  of  thought 
that  may  tend  toward  the  resolution  of  many  of 
them.  Expressions  that  are  thought  imprecatory 
may  often  be  no  more  than  the  utterance  of  the 
longing  of  a  soul  for  the  execution  of  justice 
upon  wrong-doing.  To  prayer  of  that  sort  no 
one  ought  to  be  a  stranger.  There  is  a  basis  for 
such  prayer  in  our  very  nature  to  which  the 
Christian  religion  has  never  set  itself  in  antag- 
onism. It  is  from  the  pen  of  the  very  apostle 
of  love  that  we  get  a  representation  of  saints, 
beneath  the  altar  of  God,  crying:  "How  long, 
O  Lord,  holy  and  true,  dost  thou  not  judge  and 
avenge  our  blood  on  them   that   dwell  upon  the 

earth?" 

130 


IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS  131 

There  may  be  a  desire  for  justice  without  any 
malevolent  feeling  running  along  with  it. 

Out  of  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  Psalms  there 
are  not  more  than  four  whose  imprecatory  ex- 
pressions may  not  at  once  be  referred  to  this 
desire  for  justice,  and  so  not  only  be  tolerable 
but  laudable  in  their  character. 

There  are,  however,  a  few  that  in  some  ex- 
pressions seem  to  go  beyond  this,  and  that  may 
seem  to  us  to  be  charged  with  the  spirit  of 
malevolence.  But  perhaps  in  ultimate  analysis 
these  few  exceptional  cases  can  be  referred  to 
the  same  great  inclusive  rule.  If  they  cannot, 
that  will  furnish  a  reason  for  setting  them  aside 
— not  for  neglect  of  the  great  mass  not  so  tainted 
with  malevolence.  For  purposes  of  such  analy- 
sis let  us  examine  the  extremest  case. 

Psalm  137  begins:  "By  the  rivers  of  Baby- 
lon, there  we  sat  down,  yea,  we  wept,  when  we 
remembered  Zion."  This  Psalm  is,  of  course, 
a  Psalm  of  the  captivity.  It  ends:  "O  daughter 
of  Babylon,  who  art  to  be  destroyed;  happy 
shall  he  be,  that  rewardeth  thee  as  thou  hast 
served  us.  Happy  shall  he  be,  that  taketh  and 
dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the  stones."  No 
other  Psalm  presents  more  difficulties  than  this. 


132  IMPRECATORY  PSALMS 

What  can  cast  light  on  this  case  will  be  likely 
to  illuminate  any  other.  In  fact,  any  treatment 
we  give  this  case  will  be  applicable  to  the  diffi- 
culties that  spring  out  of  the  directions,  as  from 
the  Lord,  to  the  Israelites  in  their  wars  with  the 
Canaanites.  The  philosophy  that  covers  the  one 
case  will  cover  the  other. 

Let  us  bear  in  mind  a  few  fundamental  princi- 
ples. No  principle  is  more  widely  accepted  in 
religion  than  that  of  the  progressiveness  of  reve- 
lation. The  times  of  ignorance  God  overlooks, 
is  a  good  Biblical  statement  of  the  principle. 

The  alteration  in  the  moral  horizon  of  men 
which  the  providential  working  of  this  principle 
makes,  is  too  frequently  lost  from  sight.  Within 
a  generation  often  you  see  a  new  moral  heavens 
and  earth.  We  do  not  think  it  right  to  make  the 
social  use  of  rum  that  our  grandfathers  did.  It 
would  be  sin  for  us  to  do  as  they  did,  but  does 
it  follow  that  it  was  sin  in  them  to  do  as  we  do 
not?  You  get  an  answer  to  such  question  by 
applying  the  principle  of  the  progressiveness  of 
revelation  to  the  case.  The  sin  in  the  use  of  rum 
had  not  come  up  to  the  moral  perception  of  our 
grandfathers  as  it  has  to  us.  Men  are  judged 
by  the  light  they  have,  not  by  the  light  which 
afterward  appears  on  the  moral  horizon. 


IMPRECATORY  PSALMS  133 

Now  we  are  in  position  to  lay  down  some 
ethical  corollaries.  The  disposition  to  do  right 
is  the  essential  characteristic  of  religion.  The 
perception  of  what  is  right  is  a  measure  of  the 
stage  of  ethical  civilization.  In  this  connection 
it  may  be  said  that  Buckle  is  right  in  his  major 
premise,  that  all  progress  is  through  intellectual 
process,  but  stupidl}'  wrong  in  his  minor  premise, 
that  there  is  no  intellectual  element  in  morals 
and  religion,  and  hence  his  conclusion  that  there 
is  no  progress  in  murals  and  religion  falls. 
There  is  as  much  progress  in  the  intellectual 
perception  of  the  application  of  the  principles  of 
morals  and  religion  as  in  any  other  department 
of  human  activity. 

If  men  still  living  can  remember  the  invention 
of  railway  locomotion,  and  telegraph  and  tele- 
phone communication,  they  can  also  remember 
how  in  morals  we  have  moved  away  from  the 
generation  preceding  in  estimate  of  the  wrong 
in  human  slavery  and  in  the  use  of  intoxicant 
drinks. 

Now  the  Christian  religion  does  not  teach  us 
that  we  are  to  imitate  the  civilization  of  the 
worthies  of  old.  The  Christian  religion  does 
not  teach  us  that   their   perception    of   vyhat  is 


134  IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS 

right  is  to  be  a  guide  for  us.  The  disposition 
with  which  the  prophets  and  psalmists  ap- 
proached the  questions  which  pertain  to  God 
and  societ}'  is  an  imitable  thing.  For  instance, 
Abraham  was  called  the  "friend  of  God."  He 
was  so  called  because  his  disposition  was  right 
toward  God.  He  was  willing  to  do  and  meant 
to  do  what  God  wanted  him  to  do,  just  so  far 
and  just  so  fast  as  God  made  it  known  to  him. 
But  Abraham  was  a  polygamist.  Polygamy  to 
us  is  sin.  Was  it  to  Abraham?  The  perception 
of  what  was  right  in  the  matter  of  the  relations 
of  the  sexes  to  each  other  had  not  dawned  upon 
his  mind.  God  had  not  revealed  it  to  him,  nor 
had  the  civilization  of  his  times  wrestled  with 
that  problem.  Such  was  Abraham's  disposition, 
however,  toward  God,  that  we  feel  sure  if  God 
had  revealed  to  him  or  impressed  upon  him  the 
perception  of  the  right  on  this  subject  which 
we  have, he  would  gladly  have  held  to  the  theory 
and  practice  which  we  do. 

But  his  disposition  was  perfect,  for  he  did  the 
best  he  could  according  to  the  light  he  had. 

The  matter  of  the  separate  individualit}^  of 
women  and  children  is  one  that  we  think  per- 
haps very  clear,  but   it   is   an  idea  that  man  has 


IMPREC  A  TOR  Y  PSALMS  135 

been  very  slow  in  acquiring.  The  old  idea  was 
either  that  a  wife  and  children  were  a  man's 
property  or  that  the}^  were  parts  of  himself. 
They  were  regarded  as  so  identified  with  him 
that  the  same  treatment  that  was  due  him  was 
due  them  also.  The  punishment  that  was  due 
a  man  was  regarded  as  not  fully  inflicted  till  it 
had  fallen  on  his  wife  and  children.  Wife  and 
child  in  ancient  times  were  property.  To  this 
day  the  property  of  an  enemy  is  subject  to  de- 
struction. 

Now,  it  is  all  very  easy  to  throw  up  both 
hands  here  and  shout,  "Barbarous I"  But  what 
do  you  mean  by  barbarous  ?  To  be  barbarous  is 
not  necessarily  sinful.  Do  you  mean  that  all 
mankind  have  meant  to  do  wrong  in  this  matter 
of  the  individuality  of  women  and  children? 
We  need  not  judge  antiquity  so  harshly.  It  is 
better  to  think  that  men  did  not  perceive  the 
right  rather  than  that  perceiving  it  they  with- 
stood it.  Read  "Maine's  Ancient  Law,"  and 
you  will  see  how  widely  in  ancient  society  the 
father  had  the  absolute  right  of  life  and  death 
over  the  child.  It  could  hardly  be,  but  that 
whatever  right  the  father  had, would  be  conceived 
as  falling  to  his  captors  in  war.    That  would  be 


136  IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS 

unethical  judgment  for  us,  but  was  it  necessarily 
so  in  ancient  society? 

It  may  be  worth  our  while  to  see  how  far  down 
the  ages  this  mergence  of  the  identity  and  fates 
of  women  and  children  in  the  fortunes  of  the  male 
head  of  the  family  has  traveled.  According  to 
the  historian  Green,  "Mine  is  the  calf  that  is 
born  of  my  cow,"  is  what  the  old  Saxon  said 
when  he  wished  to  sell  his  child  into  slavery. 
Wife  and  child,  cow  and  calf  were  on  equal 
footing  as  propert}^  with  the  Saxon. 

The  advocates  of  the  rights  of  woman  will  tell 
you  that  this  low  estimate  of  woman  persists  yet 
in  some  very  obnoxious  forms.  A  generation 
only  ago,  in  many  respects,  such  a  being  as  a 
married  woman  was  unknown  to  the  law.  This 
same  principle  of  mergence  of  wife  and  child  in 
the  husband  and  father  has  hovered  over  our 
civilization  in  some  very  severe  aspects  to  a 
very  late  date. 

Take  up  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  you  read  a  prohibition  upon  both  the  gen- 
eral government  and  the  government  of  the 
states  against  passing  bills  of  attainder.  What- 
ever attainder  was,  it  is  certain  that  its  principle 
was  still  so  mingled  in  the  elements  of  our  civ- 


IMPRECATORY  PSALMS  137 

ilization  that  those  who  framed  the  Constitution 
feared  that  it  would  crop  out  in  actual  result.  In 
fact,  it  had  cropped  out,  and  bills  of  attainder 
had  been  passed  by  several  colonies  during  the 
revolution  and  the  existence  of  the  Confedera- 
tion. 

But  what  was  the  effect  of  a  bill  of  attainder? 
Its  very  principle  was  to  involve  afamil}^  in  the 
ruin  of  its  male  head.      It  worked  corruption  of 
blood,  as  it  was    called,  as  well  as   confiscation 
of  property.     That  is,  it  made  the   children    in- 
capable   of   receiving   anything    through    their 
attainted    father.      Neither    rank    nor    property 
could    come   to   them  through  him.      Well,  this 
was    involving    the    innocent  in  the  fate  of    the 
guilty.    But  almost  within  the  lifetime  of  a  cen- 
tenarian that  kind   of  principle  was  enacted  into 
law    by   the   assembled    legislative  wisdom  of  a 
Colony,  in  fact   by  our   Revolutionary  Fathers. 

Blackstone  says  of  the  attainted  person: 
"When  it  is  now  clear  beyond  dispute  that  the 
criminal  is  no  longer  fit  to  live  upon  the  earth, 
but  is  to  be  exterminated  as  a  monster  and  a 
bane  to  human  society,  the  law  sets  a  note  of 
infamy  upon  him."  That  is  as  strong  language 
as  David  used  towards  his  enemies.     But  is  it 


138  IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS 

necessary  to  charge  attainder  as  sin  against 
English  and  American  society  of  a  century  ago? 
There  was  a  writ  of  attaint  still  English  law, 
when  Blackstone  wrote,  that  ran  against  a  jury 
who  had  found  a  false  verdict.  Now  it  would 
seem  that  if  there  was  anything  for  which  a 
man's  wife  and  children  should  not  suffer,  it 
would  be  a  crime  that  he  might  commit  while 
he  was  away  from  them  shut  up  on  a  jury.  But 
this  judgment  of  attaint,  according  to  Black- 
stone,  ran  thus:  "That  the  jurors  should  lose 
all  right  at  law  and  become  forever  infamous; 
should  forfeit  their  goods  and  the  profits  of  their 
lands;  should  themselves  be  imprisoned  and 
their  wives  and  children  thrown  out  of  doors; 
should  have  their  houses  razed,  their  trees  ex- 
tirpated." That  kind  of  thing  within  two  cen- 
turies was  liable  to  be  enforced  as  English  law. 
It  has  been  English  law  till  within  a  generation, 
that  a  defendant  summoned  into  court  might 
throw  down  his  glove  and  demand  that  the 
plaintiff  fight  him.  Wager  of  battle  as  a  method 
of  deciding  legal  disputes  between  man  and  man 
stood  in  English  law  to  the  middle  of  this  cen- 
tury. 

Now  it  will  hardly  do  to  say  that  there   was 


IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS  139 

no  religion,  no  disposition  to  do  right  in  En- 
gland, when  wager  of  battle  was  an  existing 
legal  practice.  Why,  the  very  formula  with 
which  a  matter  was  committed  to  this  method 
of  settlement  was:  "God  defend  the  right."  A 
poor  way  of  getting  at  the  right, we  say — to  ex- 
pect it  to  come  out  of  the  physical  prowess  of 
the  burliest  bull}',  but  it  would  be  hard  to  prove 
that  we  have  an-y  more  attachment  to  the  right 
than  the  generations  who  tried  to  find  it  b}''  the 
hazard  of  battle.  There  has  come  up  to  our 
horizon  a  perception  of  better  methods  of  de- 
termining what  is  right,  and  in  this  consists  such 
superiority  as  we  may  have  over  our  ancestors. 
We  are  not  to  charge  our  Revolutionary 
Fathers  who  enacted  bills  of  attainder,  or  the 
body  of  the  English  people  among  whom  the 
action  of  attaint  or  wager  of  battle  prevailed, 
with  wickedness  and  malevolence.  They  sim- 
ply had  not  a  clear  conception  of  the  idea  of  in- 
dividuality, in  cases  of  attainder  and  attaint. 
They  had  not  got  out  from  under  the  shadow  of 
the  view  of  the  past  that  you  might  chase  a 
criminal  for  punishment  into  all  that  belonged 
to  him,  and  into  all  that  were  nearly  related  to 
him. 


HO  IMPRECATORY  PSALMS 

Doubtless  such  laws  furnished  opportunities 
for  the  exercise  of  malevolence.  I  would  not 
say  that  it  was  not  often  exercised  under  them. 
But  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  should  charge 
malevolence  upon  the  whole  civilization  out  of 
which  these  laws  sprung,  who  should  say  that 
malevolence  necessarily  inhered  in  it,  so  that  no 
one  could  seek  the  execution  of  such  laws  unless 
he  were  malevolent.  What  we  consider  cruelty 
is  simply  part  and  parcel  of  an  ancient  concep- 
tion of  justice.  Here  is  an  illustrative  extract 
taken  from  the  Contemporary  Review,  Septem- 
ber, 1876:  ''For  less  favored  convicts  (than  those 
guilty  of  high  treason)  it  was  till  1814  ordered, 
that  the}'  should  be  drawn  on  a  hurdle  to  the 
place  of  execution  and  there  hanged  by  the 
neck,  but  that  they  should  be  taken  down  again, 
and  that  when  they  were  yet  alive  their  bowels 
should  be  taken  out  and  burned  before  their 
faces,  and  that  afterward  their  heads  should  be 
severed  from  their  bodies  and  their  bodies  be 
divided  into  four  quarters  and  their  heads  and 
quarters  be  at  the  king's  disposal."  This  law 
till  1814! 

When  you  pass   over  to   consider  the  laws  of 
war  of  ancient  times    you   see   the   condition  of 


IMPRECA  7  OR  Y  PSALMS  141 

the  mergence  of  the  rights  of  women  and    chil- 
dren more  clearly    brought    out.     Ancient  war 
meant  extermination.     In  the  early  stages  of  all 
civilizations  a  man  was  not  considered  dead  till 
his  wife  and  child   or   wives   and  children  were 
killed.   Objection  is  raised  against  the  Israelites 
because  they  were    to    go    into   Canaan    on  the 
principle  of  extermination.   There  was  no  nation 
under  heaven  that  did  not  carry  on  war  on  that 
plan  in  their  day.  The  Canaanites  did  it.   They 
would  have  cut  the  throats  of  every  Jewish  wom- 
an and  child  they   could  capture,  and   any  com- 
mand, as  Divine  authority  to  the  Jew  to  do  the 
same  thing,  was   only   saying   that   they    might 
have  the  privileges  of  the  laws  of  war  of    their 
times.     To  have  demanded  anything  less  of  the 
Israelites  when  they   must    necessarily   go   into 
war  would  have  seemed  to  them  like  being  com- 
manded to  whip  an  enemy  with  their  hands  tied 
behind  their  backs.     When   God   got   ready   to 
"let  slip  the  dogs  of  war"  he  let  slip  such  dogs 
as  were  on  hand;  he  did   not   wait  to  develop  a 
new  breed. 

Professor  Schurman  of  Cornell,  in  his  book 
"The  Ethical  Import  of  Darwinism,"  puts  the 
matter  under  view  thus:     "Life  has  no  sacred- 


142  IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS 

ness  per  se  among  savages;  and  children,  and 
old  men  as  useless  members  of  the  community, 
are,  under  the  stern  law  of  necessity,  or  of  cus- 
tom crystallized  from  it,  frequently  put  to  death. 
This,  however,  must  not  be  confounded  with 
murder,  since  among  primitive  peoples  children 
fall  under  the  category  of  property,  and  are, 
therefore,  like  slaves  or  other  chattels,  at  the 
absolute  disposition  of  the  head  of  the  house,  as 
is  forcibly  illustrated  in  Roman  law.  In  time 
of  war  Christian  nations  think  it  right  to  kill, 
and  the  normal  condition  of  the  savage  is  one 
of  war  with  the  rest  of  mankind  as  enemy. 
Women  and  children  were  regarded  as  property 
before  they  were  regarded  as  persons." 

When  we  sent  our  soldiers  out  to  fight  the  late 
civil  war,  are  we  to  suppose  they  had  any  malev- 
olent feelings  towards  the  individual  persons 
against  whom  they  leveled  their  muskets?  It  is 
not  necessary  to  attribute  that  feeling  to  them 
any  more  than  it  is  to  attribute  malevolence  to 
a  sherifT  toward  a  person  whom  he  executes. 
So  even  when  a  war  of  extermination  was  car- 
ried on,  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  any 
more  wickedness  lay  beneath  it  than  beneath 
the  effort  of  our  own  brothers  and  sons  to  shoot 


IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS  143 

their  antagonists  in  the  late  rebellion,  when  you 
come  to  consider  the  idea  of  the  times  as  to 
mergence  of  women  and  children  in  the  men— 
to  consider  that  in  the  wife  and  child  men  saw 
the  enemy,  as  well  as  in  the  man  himself. 

War  furnishes  occasion  for  malevolence, but  it 
does  not  necessarily  inhere  in  war.    A  man  can 
kill  according   to  the   laws    of    war  which  now 
prevail,  without  being  charged    with    sin   in  the 
sight  of  God.     A  man    could   kill   according  to 
the  laws  of  war  in  the  days  of  the  Israelites  with- 
out being  charged  with  sin  in  the  sight  of  God. 
But  we  can  turn  our  backs   in  contempt  upon 
the  horrid  laws  of    war    of    the    Jews,  and  con- 
gratulate ourselves  that  we  have  progressed  in- 
finitely beyond   them,  can    we   not?     Have  we 
made  so  very  great  progress?     We   shell   cities 
to-day,  careless    whether   in    the    operation    we 
shiver   women   and   children   or  not.     And  we 
have  not  the  excuse  that  our  civilization  merges 
a  wife  in  her  husband,  and  that  we  do  not  know 
any  better,  for  we  do.     The  religion  of  our  war 
differs  from  the  religion    of   the   Israelites    only 
in   the   element   of    distance.     We  can  kill  our 
women  and  children  a  mile  or  nine  miles  ofl,  and 
so  we   seem   very  humane   in   comparison    with 


144  IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSALMS 

those  who  had  to  do  it  hand  to  hand.  We  have 
added  to  our  religion  of  war  just  what  religion 
there  is  in  powder;  that  is  all. 

Doctor  Bartol,  in  a  recent  number  of  the 
"Forum,"  says:  "The  warlike  and  warring 
nation  hails  with  joy  every  invention  of  chasse- 
pot,  needle  gun,  minnie  ball,  rifled  cannon, 
monitor  or  torpedo.  Charles  Sumner  and 
Francis  Wayland  both  argued  that  the  distinc- 
tion which  makes  some  lethal  instruments  legit- 
imate, and  brands  others  with  immorality  and 
shame,  is  absurd.  The  whole  difficulty  resolves 
itself  into  the  question  whether  war  is  justifiable 
at  all  or  not.  If  it  is  justifiable  at  all,  then  it  is 
justifiable  to  carry  it  on  according  to  the  civili- 
zation of  particular  times." 

Whether  war  is  justifiable  or  not  depends  en- 
tirely upon  the  importance  of  the  cause  at  stake 
in  it.  Men  have  always  so  judged  and  so  they 
always  will,  so  long  as  these  two  opposite  prin- 
ciples of  love  for  the  right  and  of  selfishness  are 
struggling  together  for  the  possession  of  human- 
ity. There  was  grim  sense  in  the  telegram  sent 
by  the  soldiers  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  at  a 
reunion  in  Boston  a  few  years  ago  to  the  Peace 
Society  then  holding   a   session    in   New  York. 


IMPRECA TOR  Y  PSALMS  145 

The  Peace  Society  telegraphed  to  the  arm}^ 
men:  "Let  us  have  peace."  And  the  army 
men  replied:  "We  will  have  peace  if  we  have 
to  fight  for  it." 

To  say  nothing  of  other  wars,  take  the  civil 
war  in  France  when  the  Commune  got  posses- 
sion of  Paris.  It  was  justifiable,  it  was  right  for 
the  national  government,  at  whose  head  stood 
Thiers,  to  drop  its  shells  into  Paris.  If  they 
fell  among  women  and  children,  so  must  it  be. 
Women  and  children  will  hereafter  live  in 
greater  safety  by  all  the  destruction  wrought  by 
the  shells  which  overthrew  the  Commune.  In 
like  manner  it  can  be  shown  that  the  wars  of 
the  Israelites  were  seeds  of  peace,  of  morals  and 
civilization  for  all  after-coming  humanity.  Their 
wars  will  stand  justified  by  the  cause  they  rep- 
resented. The  Israelites  stood  even  then  for 
more  humanity  in  war  than  the  surrounding  na- 
tions. "Behold  now,  we  have  heard  that  the 
kings  of  Israel  are  merciful  kings"  is  testimony 
that  comes  to  us  from  the  neighboring  nations 
as  to  the  reputation  they  had  gained  among 
them. 

They  stood  for  the  principle  of  the  sacredness 
of  the  life  of  a  child.   In  war  though  they  might 


146  IMPRECATORY  PSALMS 

pray  that  their  enemies'  children  might  be 
dashed  against  the  stones, yet  remember  that  not 
in  war,  but  in  peace,  those  nations  took  those 
same  children,  their  own  too,  and  burned  them 
to  ashes  in  the  arms  of  their  gods.  The  wars  of 
the  Israelites  were  better  for  humanity  than  the 
peace  of  their  neighbors. 

The  Israelites  stood  for  the  inviolable  purity 
of  woman.  The  nations  by  whom  \\\Qy  were 
surrounded  taught  prostitution  as  a  religious  act 
and  used  it  as  an  arm  of  war.  To  the  Israelite 
prostitution  was  a  crime;  to  the  Canaanite  a 
celebration  in  his  so-called  religion,  without 
which  no  woman  was  assigned  to  a  husband. 
The  wars  of  the  Israelites  were  better  for  woman 
than  the  peace  of  the  surrounding  nations. 

The  Israelites  so  'stood  for  the  principle  of 
individuality  that  at  the  time  of  Christ  no  other 
nation  so  fully  recognized  the  right  of  a  man  to 
himself  when  he  became  of  age. 

In  the  later  days  of  their  nationality  they  were 
first  on  the  road  in  the  emancipation  of  woman, 
by  declaring  as  no  other  nation  did  the  sub- 
stantial equality  of  woman  with  man,  in  their 
established  social  custom  that  no  man  should 
have    but   one    woman    to  wife.     Can  there  be 


IMPRECATORY  PSALMS  147 

such  a  thing  as  righteous  prayer  to  God  for  the 
success  of  arms  in  a  holy  cause?  Look  again  at 
the  prayer  of  these  sad  captives  by  the  rivers  of 
Babylon,  and  consider  that  all  they  prayed  for 
was  what  was  allowed  by  the  laws  of  war  of 
their  time,  that  that  differs  not  at  all  from  what 
we  do  when  we  bombard  a  town  even  in  our 
own  day. 

It  is  one  thing  to  bear  malice  to  individuals, 
it  is  quite  another  to  be  attached  to  a  cause 
which  one  feels  must  succeed  even  at  the  ex- 
pense of  war. 

The  role  of  suffering  is  not  always  to  be 
played.  We  are  to  suffer  wrong  rather  than  to 
do  wrong.  But  there  are  times  when  forbearing 
to  smite  ceases  to  be  a  virtue.  There  are  times 
when  the  right  must  pray  to  b^  might,  when  it 
must  put  on  the  nerve  to  make  itself  might, 
whatever  stands  in  the  way. 

Men  in  this  situation  may  be  obliged  to  bom- 
bard towns,  not  because  the}^  would  kill  women 
and  children,  but  that  women  and  children  may 
not  be  killed.  If  it  be  necessary  for  the  peace 
of  nations  for  many  generations,  that  another 
nation  be  chastised,  the  work  must  be  done. 
We  have  not  yet  found   how   to  do  this  kind  of 


148  IMPRLCAIORY  PSALMS 

work  so  delicately  as  not  to  hurt  anybody.  So 
long  as  we  have  not,  we  are  in  no  position  to  sit 
in  judgment  on  those  in  ancient  times  who  were 
in  the  same  darkness  as  ourselves.  If  you  want 
to  get  a  right  point  of  view  of  the  matter,instead 
of  sitting  down  to  cool  criticism  of  it  in  your 
comfortable  parlors,  or  approaching  with  the 
careless  levity  that  loves  to  turn  a  handsome 
point  in  a  village  debating  society,  go  down  to 
Andersonville  and  see  if  you  think  that  prayer 
would  rise  in  essentially  different  shape  from  the 
hearts  of  your  own  brothers,  husbands,  fathers, 
sons,  as  haggard  and  wan  they  staggered  to  the 
filthy  streams,  uncertain  whether  they  would 
drink  from  them,  or  the  bullet  of  the  guard 
would  spill  their  blood  in  them,  or  as  with  their 
weak  hands  they  dug  holes  in  the  earth  to  shelter 
themselves  from  the  burning  sun  or  the  storms 
of  heaven.  Look  in  there, and  you  have  a  differ- 
ent impression  of  the  Divine  heart  from  what  I 
have,  if  you  suppose  that  their  prayers  to  the 
extent  of  the  laws  of  war  were  heinous  in  the 
Divine  eyes.  You  have  a  different  notion  of 
righteousness  from  what  I  have,  if  you  suppose 
it  was  a  sin  for  thosemen, conscious  of  what  they 
stood    for    in    the    civilization   of  humanity,   to 


IMPRECA  TOR  Y  PSAL MS  \ 49 

pray  that  shells  might  fall  into  Richmond,  even 
if  women  were  involved  in  its  destruction,  and 
those  women  essentially  combatants,  not  non- 
combatants.  A  clean  sweep  of  non-combatants 
even  might  seem  to  them  necessary  that  Ander- 
sonvilles  and  their  like  might  be  no  more,  and 
that  women  and  children  to  all  coming  time 
might  be  wrung  no  more  with  anguish  over 
kindred  barbarities. 

In  this  light  go  back  to  the  captives  of  Baby- 
lon. Remember  that  they  are  captives  of  war, 
that  they  and  their  children  are  held  in  contact 
with  unspeakable  moral  abominations;  then  if 
you  insist  that  there  is  sin  in  their  prayer,  you 
must  take  it  upon  yourself  to  decide  that  they 
had  a  moral  light  on  war  that  the  civilized  and 
Christianized  nations  of  the  earth  have  not  yet 
attained,  and  that  they  loved  the  little  children 
of  Babylon  less,  rather  than  Zion,  and  what  it 
stood  for,  more. 


VII. 

A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF 
ST.  PAUL. 

We  are  now  in  an  era  of  archaeological 
"finds." 

Within  a  few  years  the  mummy  of  the  Pharaoh 
who  exchanged  living  glances  with  Moses  has 
been  identified.  We  may  say  we  probably  have 
the  skull  of  Sophocles  and  the  tomb  of  Aristotle. 
Lost  Greek  and  Latin  treatises  are  restored. 
Documents  of  the  early  Christian  literature,  of 
the  first  and  second  centuries,  which  we  have 
heard  of  only  by  "the  hearing  of  the  ear,"  or 
of  which  we  have  had  only  snatches  quoted  by 
later  authors,  are  brought  out  from,  perhaps, 
palimpsest  hiding,  in  full,  to  the  delight  of 
scrutinizing  eyes.  Some  of  these  documents  are 
not  only  interesting  in  themselves,  but  they  are 
of  great  value  in  the  determination  of  the  ques- 
tions that  have  arisen  concerning  the  authorship 
and  the  date  of  origin  of  the  gospels  and  of  the 
150 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL  151 

Other  components  of  the  New  Testament.  Here 
is  a  document,  the  Gospel  of  St.  Peter,  re- 
cently brought  to  light  in  Egypt,  that  was,  in 
fair  certainty,  afloat  by  the  middle  of  the  second 
century.  It  is  valuable  as  proving  the  earlier 
existence  of  our  gospels.  It  is  especially  valu- 
able as  forming  an  additional  link  in  the  chain 
of  evidence  which  is  invincibly  compelling  the 
conviction  that  the  Gospel  of  John  was  in  exist- 
ence at  the  close  of  the  first  century.  The  "the- 
osophist"  of  the  second  century,  as  the  author 
of  this  gospel,  must  retire  from  the  stage  to  give 
place  to  the  historically  accredited  author,  John, 
if  fair  weight  is  given  to  this  and  kindred  pieces 
of  evidence. 

Professor  Thayer,  formerly  of  Andover,  now 
of  the  Harvard  Divinity  School,  a  ripe  scholar, 
and  of  judicial  bent,  says  of  the  evidence  afforded 
by  the  Gospel  of  Peter:  "Half  a  century  of 
discussion  is  swept  away  by  the  recent  discovery 
at  a  stroke.  Brief  as  is  the  recovered  fragment, 
it  attests  indubitably  all  four  of  our  canonical 
books."  All  the  "finds"  of  the  day  seem  to  he 
in  the  direction  of  the  confirmation  of  the  history 
of  the  gospels  as  we  have  usually  understood. 
They  all  fall  one  way.   So  much  has  been  found 


152        A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

recently  by  archaeological  researches  that  it  is 
now  getting  to  be  a  proverb  in  that  realm  that 
"anything  may  happen." 

It  takes  one's  breath  away  to  think  that  we 
may  yet  look  upon  the  ashes  of  St.  Paul.  If 
we  go  no  further  than  we  now  are,  we  probably 
know  the  exact  spot  of  his  final  burial.  Lanci- 
ani,  whose  record  of  recent  archaeological  re- 
searches in  Rome  we  can  now  read  in  English 
editions,  and  whose  own  work  is  brilliant  and 
valuable,  has  within  two  years  looked  upon  an 
inscription  of  the  century  of  Constantine,  which 
purports  to  cover  the  spot  where  the  body  of  St. 
Paul  lies.  There  is  no  reason  now  known  why 
this  inscription  should  not  be  true.  The  early 
Christians  were  careful  about  the  sepulture  of 
their  martyrs. 

Tradition  from  the  days  of  Constantine  has 
asserted  the  tomb  of  Paul  to  be  at  this  particular 
spot.  Now  Lanciani  finds  the  inscription  to 
verify  the  tradition.  Here  I  want  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  force  of  tradition.  Tradition  is  usually 
•'the  survival  of  the  fittest"  on  the  historic  line. 
Men  have  always  written,  and  told  the  truth 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  pretty  much  as  they  do 
now — nine  times   the   thing    that  is,  to  once  the 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL         153 

thing  that  is  not.  It  must  have  been  so,  or  the 
race  itself  could  not  have  survived.  "Say  so" 
has  always  given  title  to  land.  Tradition  before 
the  fourth  century  is  as  likely  to  be  right  as  that 
subsequent  to  that  date.  Constantine  was  as 
likely  to  be  correct  with  regard  to  the  body  he 
so  carefully  and  expensively  buried  as  the  later 
ages  in  regard  to  the  location  of  Constantine's 
memorial  church.  But  in  re  the  sepulcherof  St. 
Paul,  see  Lanciani,  "Pagan  and  Christian 
Rome." 

I  wish  to  treat  rather  of  what  I  will  call — a 
missing  chapter  in  the  life  of  St.  Paul. 

The  book  of  "The  Acts  of  the  Apostles" 
closes  with  Paul  under  arrest  at  Rome,  awaiting 
trial  before  the  Emperor.  Two  years  are  thus 
spent.  To  cover  all  that  period,  Luke  (for  we 
will  assume  him  to  be  the  author  of  the  Acts) 
simply  says  that  Paul  was  preaching  and  teach- 
ing in  confidence  and  without  hindrance,  and 
there  his  record  shuts  down.  The  question  is, 
can  we  trace  Paul's  life  more  fully  or  further, 
and  if  we  can,  what  are  our  sources  of  informa- 
tion? It  will  readily  occur  that  if  Paul  wrote 
any  letters  during  the  two  years  or  afterward, 
these  might  give  us  some  additional  light. 


154        A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.    PAUL 

Now  there  are  several  Epistles  which  on  their 
face  show  that  they  were  written  while  he  was 
bound  at  Rome.  It  is  but  little  light  that  these 
letters  give,  for  they  were  written  not  so  much 
to  chronicle  his  own  affairs,  as  to  correct,  com- 
fort and  strengthen  the  churches  to  whom  the}^ 
were  directed.  But  there  are  now  and  then  in- 
cidental allusions  to  himself  in  them.  These 
references  perhaps  show  but  little  more  than 
that  the  summary  Luke  has  given  of  those  two 
years  is  correct.  But  as  one  instance,'  we  know 
that  Paul  made  converts  to  Christianity  in  Nero's 
own  household.  See  Philippians  I.  13,  14, 
22.  We  can  well  believe  this,  for  we  can 
see  pretty  clearly  how  it  might  come  about. 

Nero's  mistress,  Poppea  (perhaps  we  may 
call  her  his  wife  according  to  Roman  law,  for 
he  had  murdered  his  former  wife  Octavia,  after 
he  was  divorced  from  her), was  a  Jewess.  Many 
Jews  would  naturally  be  in  her  body  of  attend- 
ants in  the  imperial  household.  With  these  Paul 
would  be  likely  to  communicate  and  through 
them  have  access  to  the  gentiles  of  the  court. 
For  he  was  a  prisoner  of  state  and  would  be 
likely  often  to  be  brought, by  the  guard  who  was 
set  over  him, into  the  quarters  about  the  palace. 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL        155 

We  have  seen  what  influence  Paul  acquired 
over  Julius,  the  Roman  centurion  who  took  him 
to  Rome,  and  from  the  glimpse  we  get  in  the 
letters  written  during  the  imprisonment  his  nat- 
ural force  seems  not  abated.  Besides  these 
letters  there  are  some  things  we  can  construct 
out  of  the  known  course  of  Roman  law.  We 
can  tell  with  some  degree  of  accuracy  what  was 
the  course  of  trial  in  his  case. 

Profane  history  gives  us  the  forms  of  proced- 
ure in  the  case  of  Roman  citizens  accused  of 
capital  crimes  as  Paul  was.  However  unjust  the 
final  decision  might  be,  these  forms  were  ob- 
served somewhat  scrupulously  even  by  the  most 
abandoned  of  the  Emperors. 

From  our  knowledge  of  the  Roman  law  we 
know  that  Paul  was  not  put  to  death  by  torture 
when  the  end  came. 

Roman  citizens  were  put  to  death  by  decapi- 
tation. We  know  the  customary  ground  outside 
the  walls  on  the  road  to  Ostia  where  these  exe- 
cutions took  place.  Thus  we  have  a  clue  of  a 
very  high  kind  of  probability  in  the  known 
course  of  Roman  law. 

Then  we  have  another  source  in  tradition. 
We    popularly  class    under    the    term    tradition 


156        A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.   PAUL 

everything  pertaining  to  the  subjects  treated  in 
the  Scriptures,  that  is  outside  our  canon.  This 
term  is  often  stretched  over  not  onlj^  that  mass 
of  floating  material  that  passes  from  mouth  to 
mouth  and  is  never  committed  to  writing,  but 
even  over  the  writings  of  the  early  church 
fathers;  of  course  this  is  done  in  order  to  dis- 
tinguish clearly  between  the  inspired  canon  and 
all  other  sources  of  information.  But  care  should 
be  taken,  in  exalting  the  canon,  not  to  degrade 
history. 

The  writings  of  these  early  church  fathers,  if 
they  are  not  inspired  as  we  hold  our  Scriptures 
to  be,  yet  have  a  place  in  history  and  are  to  be 
treated  as  all  other  historical  documents.  If  the 
works  are  genuine  their  statements  are  to  have 
the  same  credit  as  is  accorded  to  all  other  an- 
cient histories.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  we  are 
not  better  acquainted  with  this  class  of  works, 
which  sprang  up  under  the  tuition  of  the  Chris- 
tian church  in  its  early  daj's.  We  know  some- 
thing about  the  events  that  are  covered  by  our 
Scripture  record,  but  at  the  end  of  the  New 
Testament  history  the  night  shuts  down  upon 
us,  and  almost  all  that  is  this  side  is  a  blank. 

We  have  then  this  third  source  of  aid  in  our 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL  157 

attempts  to  construct  the  remainder  of  the  life  of 
St.  Paul,  to  wit:  early  church  histor}-.  From 
their  own  contents  we  can  make  out  that  the 
letters  to  Philemon,  to  the  churches  at  Colosse, 
Ephesus  and  Philippi,  were  written  during  the 
imprisonment  at  Rome,  the  account  of  the  be- 
ginning of  which  is  given  us  in  Acts.  The  two 
epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  the  two  to  the 
church  at  Corinth,  the  one  to  the  Romans  and 
the  one  to  the  Galatians,  were  written  before 
this  imprisonment.  There  remain  the  two 
epistles  to  Timothy  and  the  one  to  Titus,  com- 
monly called  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  the  time  of 
whose  writing  is  to  be  accounted  for.  A  slight 
examination  of  their  contents  reveals  the  fact 
that  they  were  written  under  different  circum- 
stances from  any  that  had  occurred  up  to  the 
end  of  the  imprisonment  spoken  of  in  the  Acts. 
These  epistles  reveal  the  fact  that  they  were 
written  late  in  the  life  of  their  author,  and  two 
of  them,  the  one  to  Titus  and  the  first  to  Tim- 
othy, were  written  when  Paul  was  not  in  prison 
at  all.  The  second  to  Timoth}^  reveals  the  fact 
that  Paul  was  in  prison,  but  in  very  different 
situation  from  that  spoken  of  by  Luke  and  re- 
vealed   in  the  epistles  that  we    know    he  sent 


158        A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

forth  at  that  time.  The  terms, too, in  which  Luke 
describes  the  duration  of  that  imprisonment,  im- 
ply a  termination  of  it  by  release  and  not  by 
death. 

Instead  of  translating :  "Paul  dwelt  two  whole 
years  in  his  own  hired  house,"  we  should  trans- 
late: "The  two-year  period  the  whole  of  it."  On 
the  face  of  our  text, then,  the  implication  is  a  fair 
one  that  this  two-year  period  was  terminated 
when  Luke  wrote,  and,  if  Paul  were  put  to  death 
then,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  why  Luke 
should  not  have  mentioned  it.  We  are  perhaps 
now  prepared  to  look  into  early  church  history. 
Clemens  Romanus,  who  was  the  first  elder  or 
presbyter  or  bishop  of  the  church  at  Rome,  was 
a  disciple  of  Paul.  He  is  mentioned  by  Paul  in 
his  letter  to  the  church  of  Philippi.  Clement 
wrote  an  epistle  to  the  church  of  Corinth  that 
has  survived  to  this  time,  and  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  documents  which  we  possess  in  con- 
firmation of  our  Scriptures.  He  being  in  Rome, 
and  writing  from  Rome  to  the  church  at 
Corinth,  says  "Paul  preached  the  gospel  in  the 
east  and  in  the  west,  and  that  he  had  instructed 
the  whole  world  in  righteousness  and  that  he 
had  gone  to  the  extremity  of  the  west  before  his 
martyrdom." 


A  MISSING   CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL        159 

Now  from  Rome,  '4he  extremity  of  the 
west"  could  have  been  nothing  short  of  the 
shore  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Other  Roman 
writers  can  be  shown  to  have  used  commonly 
this  expression,  "the  extremity  of  the  west,"  for 
the  regions  bordering  on  the  ocean.  Now  bear 
in  mind  that  Clement  is  Paul's  own  disciple,  is 
contemporary  with  him  and  is  known  to  have 
survived  him,  and  that  there  is  not  a  lisp  of  his- 
tory to  contradict  him,  but  that  subsequent  ref- 
erences to  the  matter  by  the  fathers  all  confirm 
him,  and  we  are  justified  in  saying  that  Paul 
must  have  been  released  on  this  first  imprison- 
ment and  have  made  his  way  to  the  west,  prob- 
ably to  Spain,  as  he  intended  to  do  if  he  should 
have  opportunity.  Another  document  of  high 
historical  repute  has  some  testimonj-  on  the  mat- 
ter. It  is  what  is  known  as  Muratori's  Canon. 
This  docum.ent  was  a  compilation  of  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament,  with  comments  upon  their 
history.  Its  author  is  unknown.  Its  date  is 
fairl}^  fixed  at  about  one  hundred  years  subse- 
quent to  the  time  of  Paul.  In  this  document 
it  is  said,  in  the  account  of  "The  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,"  that  "Luke  relates  to  Theophilus 
events  of  which  he  Vv^as   an   ej-e-witness,  as  also 


]60        A  MISSING   CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

in  a  separate  place  he  evidently  declares  the 
niart3'rdom  of  Peter,  but  omits  the  journey  of 
Paul  from  Rome  to  Spain." 

Just  about  one  hundred  years  after  the  com- 
pilation of  this  Muratori  Canon,  Eusebius  comes 
on  the  stage.  He  has  earned  the  title,  ''The 
Father  of  Ecclesiastical  History."  He  was  an 
industrious  scholar  and  ransacked  the  world  for 
every  fragment  of  church  history.  He  says: 
"After  defending  himself  successfully,  the  re- 
port or  history  runs,  that  he  (Paul)  went  forth 
again  to  preach  the  gospel.  And  coming  again 
to  the  city  (Rome),  he  suffered  martyrdom  under 
Nero."  Some  fifty  years  later  than  Eusebius, 
Chrysostom,one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  learned 
men  in  the  whole  history  of  the  church,  says 
that  Paul,  after  his  residence  in  Rome, departed 
to  Spain.  Jerome,  a  contemporarj^  of  Chrysos- 
tom  and  a  critical  scholar,  writes:  "Paul  was 
dismissed  by  Nero  that  (result)  he  might  preach 
Christ's  gospel  in  the  west."  Conybeare  and 
Howson,  from  whom  I  take  these  citations  of 
history,  say:  "Against  this  unanimous  testi- 
mony of  the  primitive  church  there  is  no  ex- 
ternal evidence  whatever  to  oppose."  Now  if  it 
were  a  matter   of   secular    history  that  we  were 


A  MISSING  CHAP  TER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL     161 

considering,  the  view  that  we  are  taking  would 
seem  to  be  settled  bej^ond  a  doubt.  Its  basis  is 
not  oral  tradition,  but  historic  record  that  goes 
clear  back  to  contemporaries  of  St. Paul  himself. 
There  is  no  reason  why  a  fact  thus  verified 
should  not  be  received  as  veritable  history.  Be- 
cause Clement's  works  are  not  in  the  canon, 
his  statement  of  facts  is  not  to  be  denied  unless 
we  have  counter  statements  on  which  to  found 
a  denial. 

The  statements  of  Tacitus  and  Pliny  are  the 
foundation  of  Roman  history.  Like  them 
Clement  was  a  Roman,  and  we  are  to  receive 
his  statements  as  fact  when  we  have  no  counter- 
vailing authority;  unless  we  are  prepared  to 
take  the  ground  that  a  heathen  Roman  could 
write  reliable  history  while  a  Christian  Roman 
could  not.  There  is  a  psychological  probability 
that  comes  in  to  reinforce  this  history.  Paul, 
to  put  it  mildly,  was  a  somewhat  strenuous  and 
willful  man,  and  he  would  be  very  likely  to  exe- 
cute what  he  projected. 

I  will  now  give  the  general  drift  of  the  con- 
clusions of  scholars  on  the  problem.  We  are 
quite  sure  that  Paul's  martyrdom  did  not  take 
place  till  the  last  year  of  Nero's  reign,  the  year 


1G2     A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

68  A.  D.  His  release  from  the  first  imprison- 
ment is  located  in  the  year  6;^  A.  D.  There 
are  then  about  five  years  to  be  added  to  the  end 
of  the  history  in  the  Acts  before  the  termination 
of  Paul's  career.  In  this  time  we  may  place  the 
journey  to  Spain,  How  many  times  he  was 
over  the  old  ground  in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece 
we  do  not  know,  but  we  know  that  he  was  once 
there  toward  the  end  of  his  life,  for  the  first 
letter  to  Timothy  reveals  that  fact,  also  the  one 
to  Titus. 

If  one  will  study  the  matter  thoroughly  enough 
he  will  be  convinced  that  the  latter  days  of  Paul 
were  passed  under  a  black  cloud  and  that  he 
went  down  in  storm.  When  we  see  him  in  the 
east  again,  as  we  do  in  the  first  letter  to  Tim- 
othy and  the  one  to  Titus,  we  find  matters  in 
very  different  shape  from  what  they  were  when 
he  left. the  region  seven  or  eight  years  before. 
There  had  sprung  up  the  germs  of  all  those 
heresies  that  for  the  next  hundred  years  dis- 
tracted and  enervated  the  churches  in  that  re- 
gion. We  think  we  have  some  wild  religious 
notions  now,  and  some  are  disposed  to  pride 
themselves  on  actually  bringing  forth  some  new 
and   very  shining   lights    in   religion.     But  the 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL      1«3 

ground  of  error  has  been  thought  over  as  well 
as  the  ground  of  truth. 

These  popular  new  lights  can  be  shown  to 
have  tried  their  powers  upon  the  church  in  that 
day  as  well  as  in  this.  Error  has  its  fathers  as 
well  as  the  truth,  and  the  onl}^  question  between 
them  is  the  one  of  respectability  of  ancestry 
and  the  healthfulness  of  influence  in  human  his- 
tory. Philosophies  that  boast  their  origin  with- 
in the  present  generation  can  be  shown  to  have 
been  as  subtly  advocated  then  as  now.  We 
have  no  conception  of  the  activity  of  mind  in 
those  days  and  regions,  and  of  the  rank  growth 
to  which  every  species  of  theory,  from  partially 
to  palpably  false,  in  religion  attained.  Every- 
thing was  there  represented,  even  down  to  that 
teaching  which  maintains  that  moral  corruption 
that  "smells  to  heaven"  in  oflensiveness  is  sweet 
as 

"Sabean  odors  from  the  spicy  shore 
Of  Araby  the  blest," 

or  that  when  a  man  plunges  into  debauchery  to 
rottenness  he  is  gently  and  tenderly  threading 
his  way  to  all  perfection  and  bliss  under  the 
light  of  the  God-principle  within  him.  The 
whole  kennel   of    heresies   seems   to   have  been 


164    A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

let  loose  in  the  east  upon  young  Christianity  at 
once,  and  they  seemed  fairly  to  drown  its  still 
small  voice  with  their  wild, discordant  ululation. 
It  was  doubtless  to  steady  the  Christian  church 
in  the  east  that  ten  to  twenty  years  or  so  later 
than  this  time  John  put  forth  the  Apocalypse 
and  his  version  of  the  gospel. 

In  the  state  of  the  churches  of  the  east  at  that 
time  we  get  a  clue  to  the  peculiar  mould  of 
thought  in  which  that  gospel  is  cast,  and  which 
so  markedly  distinguishes  it  from  the  three  Syn- 
optics. At  some  time  when  the  heat  was  fiercer, 
John  sent  into  the  same  quarter  from  his  lone 
retreat  in  Patmos  those  weird, rein-trying  letters 
of  the  Apocalypse  wherein  is  set  forth  what  the 
Spirit  saith  to  the  churches,  with  forecast  of  con- 
flicts yet  to  be,  and  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
the  kingdom  of  Christ. 

It  is  now  in  the  presence  of  the  beginning  of 
all  this  commotion  that  Paul  stands.  The  change 
has  already  begun.  False  teachers  are  going 
up  and  down  the  churches  pursuing  "fables  and 
endless  genealogies."  The  church  meetings  are 
turned  into  occasions  for  disputation  instead  of 
the  exercise  of  the  stewardship  of  God  unto 
faith.     The   babblers  have   done  their  work  all 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL     J 65 

too  well.  Old  friends  are  estranged.  All  Asia 
has  an  averted  face.  Were  Paul  a  younger  man 
we  can  conceive  with  what  ardor  he  would  have 
flung  himself  into  the  contest,  for  he  was  a  man 
of  undaunted  nerve  in  the  strength  of  his  day. 
But  he  is  now  an  old  man  and  he  seems  to  have 
known  it.  There  is,  perhaps,  in  the  second 
letter  to  Timothy  a  tinge  of  the  melancholy 
which  often  comes  to  tense  natures  with  failing 
vitality.  Nature  is  exhausted, and  the  sword  of 
the  headsman  probably  anticipated  but  a  few 
months  the  on-coming  of  the  end  of  which 
omens  were  fast  writing  up  in  his  physical 
system. 

He  has  planted  all  over  the  east  and  the  west, 
but  somebody  else  must  water.  Instead  of  a 
disposition  to  take  the  field  on  the  offensive  once 
more,  he  seems  to  have  been  disposed  to  pause 
now  and  entrench.  The  contest  is  not  to  be 
abandoned,  but  it  is  to  be  carried  on  under  other 
leaders.  He  seems  at  this  time  to  have  given 
over  his  special  command  to  Timothy  and  Titus. 
And  after  he  had  parted  with  them  on  their  fields 
of  labor  he  sent  each  of  them  a  letter  detailing 
the  plan  of  their  operations  from  the  point  of  his 
spiritual    enlightenment   and    experience,    and 


IGfi    A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

these  letters  have  ever  been  guides  to  the  church 
as  to  spirit,  doctrine  and  practice.  Paul  seems 
to  have  made  but  flitting  visits  in  this  last  jour- 
ney through  the  east.  We  hear  of  him  in  Ephe- 
sus,  in  Crete,  in  Macedonia,  at  Nicopolis,  but 
get  no  knowledge  of  any  lengthened  stay  in  any 
of  those  places.  And  now  we  verge  toward  the 
end.  The  probabilities  are  that  he  passed  the 
winter  of  67-8  in  Nicopolis  of  Epirus  and  was 
there  arrested, and  on  the  opening  of  navigation 
in  the  spring  was  conveyed  to  Rome.  Out  of 
this  imprisonment  we  have  one  solitary  voice, 
the  second  Epistle  to  Timothy. 

Read  it  and  you  will  see  that  it  could  never 
have  come  out  of  the  same  conditions  which  we 
know  attended  the  imprisonment, and  from  which 
so  many  epistles  were  sent  forth  to  the  churches. 
Then  read  contemporary  history  and  you  will 
be  confirmed  in  our  conclusion  and  get  a  key  to 
the  reason  of  the  difference. 

We  know  well  enough  that  the  two-year  period 
of  which  Luke  speaks  terminated  in  63  A.  D. 
Up  to  that  time  there  was  no  reason  wh}' 
such  rigorous  confinement  should  have  been  vis- 
ited upon  Paul  as  seems  to  be  set  forth  in  the 
last  letter  to  Timothy.     After  that  time  circum- 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL     167 

Stances  were  greatly  changed.     In  the  summer 
of  64  A.  D.,  the  great  fire    occurred  in   Rome. 
Suspicion  fell  on  the  Jews  and  on  Nero  both,  as 
the  authors  of  that  calamity.     To  shield  himself 
Nero  was  willing  to  punish  anybody,  and  would 
doubtless  have  availed  himself  of  the   suspicion 
against  the  Jews,  but  Poppea   defended   in   that 
quarter.   Up  to  this  time  the  Christians  had  been 
regarded  simply  as  Jews.     A  Roman  converted 
to  Christianity  was  regarded  by  the  Romans  as 
a  proselyte  to  Judaism.     But  now  the  Christian 
sect  began  to  loom  up  in    importance.     Hatred 
of  it  on  the  part  of  the  Jews  and  their  eagerness 
to  save  themselves  soon  diverted  to  this  sect  the 
public  attention, and  succeeded  in  fastening  upon 
it  the  charge  of  the  guilt  of  that  terrible  confla- 
gration.   And  then  commenced  that  persecution 
of  the  Christians  which  continued  with  unabated 
fury  so  long  as  Nero  lived.     The  Roman  histo- 
rians themselves  gave  the  particulars  of  this  per- 
secution.    Among  other  methods  of  torture  and 
death,  Tacitus  tells  us  that  Nero  was  accustomed 
to  light  up  his  circus  grounds  at  night  by  setting 
fire  to  the   bodies  of  Christians  after  they  had 
been  swathed  in  sheets  saturated  with  pitch, and 
that    he    drove    his   own  chariot  in   the  games 
when  his  grounds  were  thus  lighted. 


168     A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

And  thus  a  "vast  multitude,"  says  Tacitus, 
perished.  From  this  kind  of  torture  Paul's  citi- 
zenship must  have  saved  him.  But  it  could  not 
save  him  from  rigorous  confinement  and  death. 
He  had  a  first  hearing.  He  seems  to  have 
conducted  his  case  with  so  much  vigor  as  to 
delay  decision  for  a  while.  But  the  furnace 
is  at  white  heat  and  he  foresees  that  he  is  never 
to  come  out  of  it  alive. 

"On  some  fond  breast  the  parting  soul  relies.'' 
No  one  was  dearer  to  him  than  Timothy.  Tim- 
othy had  wept  over  him  when  they  last  parted. 
Paul  must  see  him  once  more  and  have  him  with 
him  at  the  end,  if  he  can;  so  he  exhorts  him  to 
come  with  all  speed.  Perhaps  his  second  hear- 
ing may  be  delayed  till  winter  comes  on.  The 
blood  of  an  old  man  towards  seventy  years  of 
age  is  thin.  There  is  a  cloak  at  Troas,  away 
over  the  ^gean,  that  would  keep  off  the  chills 
of  winter  nights.  The  monotony  of  his  dungeon 
would  be  broken  if  Luke  and  Timothy  could 
read  to  him  out  of  his  well  worn  papyrus  rolls 
and  select  parchments,  over  which  he  had  pored 
so  much  that  years  before  Porcius  Festus  told 
him  they  had  made  him  mad.  "Take  these  and 
come  shortly,"  runs  this  last  letter  to  Timothy. 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL         189 

It  is  possible,  though  doubtful, whether  Timothy 
ever  reached  Rome  in  season  to  see  him, for  be- 
fore the  first  summer  month  had  expired,  both 
Paul  and  Nero  had  gone  to  their  account. 

It  is  not  wonderful,  as  Paul  looked  back  over 
his  career,  that  he  said,  "I  have  fought  a  good 
fight."  From  the  time  when  he  fell  blinded  by 
the  vision  of  the  Lord  of  Glory  on  the  road  to 
Demascus,  up  to  this  last  moment,  his  life  was 
one  unbroken  contest.  Put  on  the  additional 
five  years  of  hardship  and  care  we  have  this 
morning  been  considering, and  Paul  would  seem 
to  be  one  of  the  heroes  of  human  achievement 
and  endurance.  And  now,  though  the  night 
was  settling  in  thick  and  black,  there  is  no  fal- 
tering, but  he  reaches  forward  in  the  darkness  to 
touch  the  '^ crown  of  righteousnes"  which  he 
knew  the  Lord  was  holding  ready  to  give  him. 

I  can  do  no  better  in  closing  than  to  give  you 
Conybeare  and  Howson's  description  of  Paul's 
execution.  You  may  think  it  fanciful  in  some 
respects,  but  the  more  critically  you  read  his- 
tory the  more  you  will  be  convinced  that  the 
picture  can  scarcely  be  other  than  the  fact. 

"The  privileges  of  Roman  citizenship  ex- 
empted St.  Paul  from  the  ignominious  death  of 


170        A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF   ST.  PAUL 

lingering  torture,  which  had  been  lately  inflicted 
on  so  many  of  his  brethren.  He  was  to  die  by 
decapitation,  and  he  was  led  out  to  execution 
bej'ond  the  city  walls  upon  the  road  to  Ostia, 
the  port  of  Rome.  As  the  martyr  and  his  ex- 
ecutioners passed  on,  their  way  was  crowded 
with  a  motley  multitude  of  comers  and  goers  be- 
tween the  metropolis  and  its  harbor;  merchants 
hastening  to  superintend  the  unloading  of  their 
cargoes,  sailors  eager  to  squander  the  profits  of 
their  last  voj^age  in  the  dissipations  of  the  capi- 
tal, officials  of  the  government  charged  with 
the  administration  of  the  provinces  or  the  com- 
mand of  the  legions  on  the  Euphrates  or  the 
Rhme,  Chaldean  astrologers,  Phrygian  eu- 
nuchs,dancing  girls  from  Syria  with  their  painted 
turbans,  mendicant  priests  from  Egypt  howling 
for  Osiris,  Greek  adventurers  eager  to  coin 
their  national  cunning  into  Roman  gold;  repre- 
sentations of  the  avarice  and  ambition, the  fraud 
and  lust,  the  superstition  and  intelligence  of  the 
imperial  world. 

"Through  the  dust  and  tumult  of  that  busy 
throng  the  small  troop  of  soldiers  threaded  their 
way  silently  under  the  bright  sk}/  of  an  Italian 
midsummer.  They  were  marching,  though  they 


A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL        171 

knew  it  not, in  a  procession  more  truly  triumphal 
than  any  they  had  ever  followed  in  the  train  of 
general  or  emperor  along  the  sacred  way.  Their 
prisoner,  now  at  last  and  forever  delivered  from 
his  captivity,  rejoiced  to  follow  his  Lord  without 
the  gate.  The  place  of  execution  was  not  far 
distant,  and  there  the  sword  of  the  headsman 
ended  his  long  course  of  suffering  and  released 
that  heroic  soul  from  that  feeble  body.  Weeping 
friends  took  up  his  corpse  and  carried  it  for 
burial  to  those  subterranean  labyrinths  where, 
through  many  ages  of  oppression, the  persecuted 
church  found  refuge  for  the  living  and  sepul- 
chers  for  the  dead. 

"Thus  died  the  apostle,  the  prophet  and  the 
martyr,  bequeathing  to  the  church  in  her  govern- 
ment and  her  discipline  the  legacy  of  his  apostolic 
labors, leaving  his  prophetic  words  to  be  her  liv- 
ing oracle, pouring  forth  his  blood  to  be  the  seed 
of  a  thousand  martyrdoms,  Thenceforth  among 
the  glorious  company  of  the  apostles,  among  the 
goodly  fellowship  of  the  prophets,  among  the 
noble  army  of  martyrs  his  name  has  stood  pre- 
eminent. And  wheresoever  the  Holy  Church 
throughout  all  the  world  doth  acknowledge  God, 
there  Paul  of   Tarsus   is   revered    as   the   great 


172        A  MISSING  CHAPTER  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ST.  PAUL 

teacher  of  a  universal  redemption  and  a  catholic 
religion — the  herald  of  glad  tidings  to  all  man- 
kind." 


VIII. 

BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY  FROM 
ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST. 

The  main  intent  and  purpose  of  the  Bible  is 
evidently  to  be  a  guide  to  moral  truth  and  life. 
But  I  turn  aside  from  that  prime  object  to  con- 
sider a  collateral  affair,  to  wit,  the  historic  truth 
of  the  Scriptures.  It  is  said,  and  truly  said,  that 
religious  truth  is  religious  truth  no  matter  what 
its  setting  may  be  in  history  or  in  literature. 
The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  it  is  said, would  save 
men,  if  its  principles  were  followed,  no  matter 
where  that  sermon  might  be  found — whether  in 
" Robinson  Crusoe," "Thirty  Thousand  Leagues 
under  the  Sea,"  or  in  the  "Moon  Hoax." 

Truly  enough  moral  truth  is  moral  truth  and 
it  makes  its  appeal  to  the  moral  sense  on  its  own 
merits,  irrespective  of  questions  of  origin.  No 
matter  where  it  came  from,  granted  it  be  moral 
truth,  we  are  under  obligation  to  adjust  our- 
selves, our  thought  and  our  conduct,  to  its  pre- 
cepts and  spirit.  But  after  all, we  are  creatures 
173 


174  BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY 

of  association.  The  activity  of  mind  runs  in 
grooves  cut  for  it  by  association.  One  thing 
suggests  another,even  in  some  widely  separated 
department,  if  the  two  things  in  use  have  been 
connected  together. 

The  moral  truth  of  the  Scripture  has  always 
been  associated  by  us  with  a  certain  course  of 
history.  The  moral  truth  and  the  history  have 
been  inseparably  blended.  Utter  a  Scripture 
moral  truth  and  you  call  up  its  primitive  historic 
setting,  "To  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and 
to  hearken  than  the  fat  of  rams,"  calls  up  the 
history  of  Samuel,  the  seer.  The  recitation  of 
certain  historic  events  has  always  sprung  upon 
our  thoughts  certain  moral  truths  therewith  con- 
nected. But  we  are  invited  to  try  the  experi- 
ment of  separating  these  two  departments;  we 
are  asked  to  abstract  the  moral  truth  from  the 
Scriptures,  confine  our  attention  to  that  and  let 
the  historic  setting  go.  We  are  told  that  that 
history  is  valueless — even  that  it  is  not  trust- 
worthy and  we  had  better  set  it  aside. 

For  us  it  will  be  a  new  experiment  to  try  to 
hold  attention  to  moral  truth  when  we  give  up 
the  history  with  which  it  has  been  associated. 
Theoretically  the  abstraction  of  the  moral  truth 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  175 

can  be  made,  but  practically  will  it?  When  men 
have  lost  confidence  in  the  history  of  the  Bible, 
will  they  for  a  long  time  pa}'  reverence  to  its 
moral  truth?  If,  when  you  speak  of  the  Bible, 
the  first  suggestion  to  a  mind  is  that  it  is  a  great 
aggregation  of  historic  falsehoods,  will  that  mind 
easily  right  about  face  from  that  suggestion  to  a 
reverent  attitude  to  its  moral  truth  ?  The  same 
fountain  does  not  send  forth  bitter  water  and 
.weet  in  that  way. 

Mind  will  not  on  the  average  work  in  that 
wa}'.  When  Biblical  history  becomes  an  old 
wives'  fable,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  will  be- 
come an  old  wives'  fable,  whatever  remnants  of 
conscience  may  be  living  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. 

The  Bible  does  not  teach  science, that  is  true. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  Bible  does  not  teach  his- 
tory. But  history  does  lie  so  plainly  on  its  face 
' — history  is  so  inwoven,  warp  and  woof,  into  its 
very  structure  that  you  may  say,  if  you  cannot 
find  a  reliable  line  of  history  set  forth  in  it,  then 
it  is  in  larger  part  a  very  hollow,  false  affair. 

We  need,  then,  to  do  some  very  plain  work 
with  this  historic  aspect  of  the  Scriptures.  We 
cannot  here  and  now  make  an  argument  to  sus- 


176  .       BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY 

tain  the  historic  truth  of  the  Scriptures,  for 
this  comment  is  intended  to  apply  to  all  the 
Scriptural  history  from  Christ  back  to  Abraham. 
I  certainly  could  not  prove  up  that  line  in  one 
discourse.  The  most  I  can  do  is  to  give  an  opin- 
ion, to  express  a  personal  conviction,  to  utter 
a  judgment, the  result  of  what  study  has  brought 
me  up  to  this  date. 

If  I  say  a  thing  is  thus  and  so, you  will  under- 
stand that  so  the  case  has  been  made  up  to  my 
mind.  I  have  no  conclusions  of  judgment  that 
sit  more  firmly  in  my  mind  than  these  I  shall 
give  respecting  the  trustworthiness  of  Scripture 
history. 

From  Christ  back  to  Abraham  I  think  we 
have  a  thoroughly  reliable  biographical  history. 
I  prefer  to  call  this  portion  of  Biblical  history 
biographical,  because  it  stands  in  contrast  with 
a  history  which  lies  behind  the  period  under 
view,  and  because  it  deals  with  the  fortunes  of 
individual  men, and  because  inherently  it  is  bio- 
graphical as  distinguished  form  race  or  national 
histor}^  The  history  runs  over  a  large  section 
of  the  fortunes  of  the  people,  to  be  sure,  but  all 
along  the  eye  is  made  to  rest  on  prominent  char- 
acters, and  where  they  fail  the  history  fades  in 
respect  to  definiteness  of  outline. 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  177 

Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  come  before  you 
as  individual  men.  The  stream  of  tribal  history 
sinks  from  view  till  Moses  and  Aaron  appear. 
The  heroic  age  has  its  leaders  in  Joshua, 
Jephthah,  Gideon,  Samson.  Prophecy  you  do 
not  see  as  a  movement,  but  you  do  see  Samuel, 
Elijah,  Elisha,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Daniel. 

The  history  of  the  kingdoms  is  a  history  of 
their  kings.  David,  Solomon,  the  Jeroboams, 
Ahab,  Hezekiah,  and  the  poor  miserable 
wretches  Jehoiakin  and  Jehoiachin  and  Zede- 
kiah,  whom  one  after  another  Nebuchadnezzar 
carried  off  in  chains  to  Babylon,  were  real  flesh 
and  blood  men  whose  fortunes  make  up  the  core 
of  the  history  of  the  kingdoms  of  Israel  and 
Judah. 

When  you  come  to  the  New  Testament,  the 
gospels  are  certainly  a  biography  of  Christ  fully 
as  much  as  they  are  a  summary  of  moral  truths. 
In  fact,  the  moral  truths  of  the  gospels  are 
mainly  Christ's  moral  truths.  You  cannot  deny 
this  historic  fact  any  more  than  you  can  deny 
the  absoluteness  of  the  spiritual  truth  of  the  be- 
atitudes. I  mean,  there  was  an  individual  who 
was  called  Jesus  who  lived,  uttered  his  body  of 
doctrine,  went   about  among  men  as  a  religious 


178  BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY 

teacher,  and  had  a  wonderful  career  as  a  healer 
of  physical,  mental  and  moral  disease.  So  the 
gospels  are  biographical  history.  The  rest  of 
the  New  Testament  is  largely  biographical,  pre- 
eminently concerned  with  the  history  and  opin- 
ions of  one  man — Saul  of  Tarsus.  Now,  wherever 
this  long  record  from  Abraham  to  Christ  goes 
outside  the  race  limit  immediately  in  its  purview, 
it  is  there  eminently  biographical.  You  touch 
a  real  historic  character  when  you  come  across 
Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  real  men  where  you  read 
of  Tiglath-Pileser,  Shalmaneser,  Sargon, Senna- 
cherib, Pharaoh  Necho,  Nebuchadnezzar. 

In  the  New  Testament  you  strike  every  Caesar 
from  Augustus  to  Nero,  and  strike  them  right  as 
they  stand  in  history.  You  do  not  get  a  broad 
view  of  the  Roman  government,  but  the  most 
prominent  personages  of  that  government  do 
come  up  as  individuals  before  you. 

Now, why  do  I  take  pains  to  assert  such  com- 
mon knowledge  as  this?  I  do  not  know  of  any- 
thing more  unhealthy,  intellectually,  than  a 
condition  of  mind  which  either  ignores  or  denies 
all  this.  A  man  is  a  prett}-  solid  fact,  and  if  a 
man  has  lived  and  made  a  demonstration  on  this 
earth  it  is  a  tremendous  plunge  toward   or  into 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  179 

the  abyss  of  ignorance  to  deny  the  fact,  to  re- 
solve the  man  into  some  fiction  of  the  imagina- 
tion, to  make  him  a  mere  figure-head  for  a  men- 
tal tendency  or  result.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
fearful  and  lamentable  of  degradations  that  can 
befall  a  man  or  a  people,  to  lose  the  historic 
sense.  That  has  been  done  in  India.  To  a 
Hindoo  there  is  no  such  thing  as  history.  He 
has  lived  so  long  in  his  imagination,  so  much  in 
philosophy,  that  he  has  no  reliable  sense  in  "his- 
tory— in  the  history  of  his  own  race  or  of  any 
other  people's.  Back  beyond  a  generation  or 
two  everything  fades  out  into  the  mist  and  cloud- 
land  of  fancy.  Actual  men  disappear  from  his 
historic  perspective,  and  the  creations  of  the 
most  grotesque  imagination  take  their  place. 
It  is  said  we  must  have  an  oriental  Christ  as 
well  as  an  occidental.  I  am  anxious  to  find  out 
along  what  lines  that  oriental  Christ  is  to  be 
drawn.  If  the  orientalizing  is  to  bring  out  to 
us  a  more  vivid  sense  of  Christ's  personality  and 
habits  of  life,  better  information  of  the  manners 
of  his  time;  if  it  is  to  give  us  higher, purer,more 
refined  conceptions  of  him  resting  on  sustaining 
fact,  then  speed  the  process  of  orientalization. 
We  have  much  to  learn  along  these  lines.      But 


180  BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY 

if  the  orientalizing  is  to  be  carried  out  along  the 
lines  of  oriental  historic  notions,  then  spare  us 
the  process  and  the  results.  If  an  oriental  Christ 
is  one  cut  away  from  solid  history  and  con- 
signed for  development  to  the  aerial  realms  of 
oriental  fancy,  if  Christ's  personality  is  to  be 
sunk  from  sight,  if  the  three  and  thirty  years  of 
that  life  in  Judea  and  Galilee  are  to  be  filled  with 
such  wild  whimseys  as  the  oriental  mind  has 
grouped  around  Buddha,  then  we  want  nothing 
of  orientalism.  An  occidental  fact  is  at  any  time 
to  be  preferred  to  an  oriental  fancy,  however 
charming  that  fancy  may  be.  A  Hindoo  has  no 
more  sense  of  history  than  a  South  Sea  Islander 
has  of  music.  The  orientals  need  occidental- 
izinof  as  to  a  historic  sense  as  much  as  the  occi- 
dentals  need  orientalizing  in  facileness  of  imagi- 
nation or  vividness  of  spiritual  perception.  We 
all  are  members  one  of  another.  Some  occi- 
dentals are  completely  orientalized. 

We  have  been  through  with  the  process  of 
orientalizing  Christ,  historically,  in  Strauss  and 
Renan.  The  process  consists  in  evolving  Christ 
from  the  inner  consciousness,  and  that,  too,  not 
the  moral  consciousness  but  an  intellectual, 
stuffed  full  of  preconception.      If  the   Christ   so 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  181 

evolved  does  not  agree  with  the  history, so  much 
the  worse  for  the  history.  The  evolved — the 
suppositious  Christ  must  stand  though  all  history 
fall.  Strauss'  fundamental  preconception  is  that 
a  certain  class  of  asserted  facts  could  not  have 
happened,  therefore  they  did  not.  Strauss  as- 
sumed to  judge  of  the  possibilities  of  Divine  ac- 
tion in  the  universe.  That  is  simply  to  cast  out 
history  at  the  outset;  it  is  to  cease  the  attempt 
to  find  the  history  that  has  been, in  order  to  con- 
struct it  at  individual  option.  That  is  orientalism 
in  full  bloom. 

Of  Kenan's  "Life  of  Christ,"  Constantine 
Tischendorf — a  student,  not  an  inventor  of  his- 
tory— writes  thus:  "This  work  has  nothing  in 
common  with  those  that  loyally  and  honestly 
inquire  into  the  facts  of  the  case.  It  is  written 
on  most  arbitrary  principles  of  its  own,  and  is 
nothing  else  but  a  caricature  of  history  from  be- 
ginning to  end." 

Of  course  it  is  a  question  of  fact  who  the 
orientalizers  are.  On  that  issue  I  think  good 
scholarship  will  conclude  that  Strauss  and  Re- 
nan  are  the  romancers,  that  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament  state  facts.  We  will  take  on 
all  the  orientalization  of  Christ  that  will   stand 


182  BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY 

to  history.  Meantime  all  lovers  of  truth  must 
try  to  infuse  into  the  oriental  mind  an  occidental 
reverence  for  a  historic  fact. 

I  am  treating  the  long  line  of  Biblical  history 
which  I  have  before  me  with  the  greatest  free- 
dom. 

I  will  not  try  to  protect  a  point  of  it  b}^  the 
aegis  of  inspiration.  I  look  at  the  record  simply 
as  a  plain  statement  of  historic  fact, and  what  I 
want  to  impress  is,  my  conviction  that  the  great 
sweep  of  this  record  is  veritable  history.  I  am 
willing  to  allow  for  corruptions  in  transcription, 
such  as  the  incorporation  of  comments  on  the 
margins  of  old  manuscripts  into  the  text,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  three  witnesses  in  John's  first 
letter,  and  the  story  of  the  angel  troubling  the 
pool  in  John's  Gospel.  I  am  willing  to  allow 
for  errors  of  transcription  of  numbers — some 
errors  even  of  historic  statement.  I  will  allow 
all  that  fair,  honest,  sound  criticism  shall  agree 
to.  Books  may  have  been  attributed  to  persons 
not  their  authors, as  I  think  is  probably  the  case 
with  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews — that  it  is  not 
Paul's.  Two  prophets  may  have  written  Zech- 
ariah,  and  two  Isaiah,  and  much  of  the  so-called 
priest's  code  may  be  of  later  authorship  than  the 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  183 

time  of  the  Exodus.  Give  whatever  the  facta 
finally  shall  compel, and  you  have  not  disturbed 
in  any  appreciable  degree  the  common  concep- 
tion of  Scripture  history. 

We  may  modify  our  notions  of  many  facts, 
but  the  facts  themselves  we  shall  not  cast  out. 
For  instance, we  may  give  up  the  idea  that  there 
was  anything  supernatural  about  Paul's  reviving 
the  young  man  who  fell  out  of  the  window  while 
he  (Paul)  was  preaching. 

But  that  there  was  such  a  man  as  Paul,  that 
he  had  such  histor^^  as  the  New  Testament  sets 
forth,  and  that  he  brought  back  to  consciousness 
a  young  man  who  fell  out  of  a  window  while  he 
(Paul)  was  preaching  at  Troas,  we  have  every 
reason  to  hold  as  we  shall  hold  that  Jamestown 
was  settled  in  1607.  In  fact,  stop  one  moment 
on  that  word  Troas.  Somehow  we  think  that 
profane  history  is  trustworthy,  while  sacred  has 
a  cloud  of  suspicion  upon  it.  Now  whether  any 
such  person  as  Priam  ever  dwelt  in  Troy  is  a 
fact  under  suspicion.  But  there  is  no  question 
that  a  young  man  by  name  of  Eutychus  fell  out 
of  a  window  in  Troas. 

We  may  pause  in  mental  helplessness  before 
Tnuch  of  the  miracle  related  in   the   New  Testa- 


184  BIOGRAPHICAL  HIS  TOR  Y 

ment.  There  we  may  have  to  pause  for  all  time, 
unable  to  resolve  the  difficulties  which  the  facts 
present,  but  that  will  not  lead  us  to  deny  the 
facts.  What  the  resurrection  was  we  may  never 
know — never  until  we  have  experienced  it  our- 
selves— but  that  can  never  obliterate  the  fact 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  crucified  under  Pontius 
Pilate,  that  his  body  was  placed  in  a  tomb  from 
which  it  came  forth  neither  friend  nor  foe  could 
tell  how,  and  that  from  that  disappearance  to 
sense  began  a  new  moral  movement  among  men 
— a  resurrection  of  souls  as  deepl}^  mysterious, 
as  significant  as  any  resurrection  of  bodies. 

Because  there  is  much  there  that  is  inexplica- 
ble we  are  not  going  to  be  guilty  of  the  supreme 
idiocy  of  denying  the  historic  facts.  So  with  the 
Old  Testament  history,  we  shall  have  to  leave 
much  unexplained.  Precisely  what  of  miracle, 
if  any,  there  was  about  the  plagues  of  Egypt; 
what  of  miracle,  if  any,  about  the  going  forth  of 
the  Israelites,  may  be  left  in  doubt. 

But  that  Israel  served  in  Egypt,  and  that  the 
Lord  brought  him  out  thence  with  a  mighty 
hand  and  finally  established  him  in  the  land  of 
Canaan,  is  no  subject  of  doubt  at  all.  A  man 
who  has  any  difficulty  on    such    a  matter  would 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  185 

be  green  enough  to  grin  incredulity  over  the 
stor}"  of  the  Mayflower  and  the  landing  on 
Plymouth  Rock. 

The  men  who  have  made  history  a  specialty 
do  not  come  up  with  historic  uncertainty  over 
the  whole  line  from  Abraham  down.  Take  the 
case  of  George  Ebers — Egyptologist  and  nov- 
elist. Wherever  his  themes  come  in  contact  with 
the  Biblical  record,  whether  at  a  point  before 
the  Exodus  or  down  at  the  date  of  the  carrying 
away  into  captivity  in  Babylon,  he  accepts  the 
Scripture  history  as  valid.  It  furnishes  him 
some  of  his  reference  points  that  give  form,  lo- 
cality and  clear  coloring  to  his  stories. 

Testimony  of  such  sort  is  the  most  powerful 
that  scholarship  can  give.  A  man  need  not  be 
quite  overcome  with  historic  doubts  when 
George  Ebers  finds  solid  ground. 

Just  here  it  is  well  to  get  a  clear  idea  of  what 
is  meant  by  the  composite  authorship  of  the 
Pentateuch  as  maintained  by  Robertson  Smith, 
Kuenen,  and  other  of  the  critical  investigators 
of  the  text  of  the  Old  Testament.  That  criticism 
will  not  start  an  essential  historic  fact  of  the  Old 
Testament  from  its  base — not, one.  It  may  prove 
that  certain  ceremonial  directions  in   the  Eeviti- 


186  BIOGRAPHICAL  HIS  TOR  Y 

cal  law  do  not  date  from  the  day  or  pen  of  Moses, 
but  belong  to  later  dates,  down  to  the  time 
of  the  restoration  from  the  captivit}^  But  this 
neither  destroys  the  historic  standing  of  Moses 
nor  of  the  captivity.  That  the  directions  for  cer« 
tain  ceremonial  observances  have  been  entered 
in  the  records  along  with  Mosaic  statutes  makes 
nothing  against  the  trustworthiness  of  the  his- 
tory of  Moses — of  the  account  of  his  great  dem- 
onstration in  bringing  out  of  Egypt  the  people 
of  Israel  and  of  establishing  them  as  rulers  over 
the  country  east  of  the  Jordan. 

To  illustrate:  Illinois  was  admitted  to  the 
Union  in  the  year  1818.  It  then  adopted  a 
body  of  statute  law.  But  you  can  find  section 
after  section  in  the  revised  statutes  of  Illinois, 
which  was  made  law  within  ten  years,  carried 
up  and  put  in  juxtaposition  with  sections  of  the 
statutes  of  1818. 

Suppose  the  later  origin  of  these  latter  sec- 
tions is  proved,  would  that  overthrow  the  fact 
that  Illinois  was  received  into  the  Union  in  x8i8, 
and  that  it  then  adopted  an  outline  of  statutory 
law?  The  fact  is  that  the  higher  criticism  does 
not  cast  doubt  on  the  main  sweep  of  Biblical 
history.      It  confirms  it.    That  criticism  may  be 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  187 

true  or  it  may  be  false,  it  may  be  partially  true 
or  false,  the  main  drift  of  historic  assertion  in 
the  Bible  back  to  the  time  of  Abraham  will 
stand  just  as  you  have  always  read  it,  just  as 
you  and  all  common-sense  people  have  under- 
stood. That  criticism  goes  to  this  point  mainly 
— whether  you  have  in  the  Pentateuch  the  Stat- 
utes of  Israel  or  the  Revised  Statutes  of  Israel. 
Suppose  you  go  a  step  further  and  show  that 
the  history  is  itself  a  revision — or  a  redaction — 
does  that  militate  against  the  verity  of  the  his- 
tory? Does  Charles  V.  pass  into  the  land 
of  fancy  because  Prescott  revised  Robertson's 
history  of  Charles  V.  ? 

Some  critics  recently  put  out  before  the  pub- 
lic the  statement  that  the  Old  Testament  was 
"full  of  old  wives'  fables,  which  would  finally 
drop  out  as  a  tadpole  loses  its  tail."  I  feel  like 
calling  for  justification  of  such  remark  so  far 
as  the  biographical  history  of  the  Old  Testament 
back  to  the  time  of  Abraham  is  concerned.  In 
the  first  place, if  the  Old  Testament  were  full  of 
fables  that  would  be  no  reason  for  their  being 
dropped.  Read  ^sop  and  you  will  see  that 
about  the  best  wisdom  man  has  is  in  the  form  of 
fables. 


188  BIOGRAPHIC/IL  HISTORY 

To  toss  the  Old  Testament  away  in  contempt 
because  it  is  full  of  fables  would  be  a  procedure 
of  dense  ignorance,  would  simply  betray  lack  of 
ability  to  perceive  intellectual  and  moral  truth 
in  one  of  its  most  apprehensible  and  portable 
forms.  The  fable  of  the  Sun,  the  Wind  and  the 
Traveler  is  one  that  we  do  not  want  to  dispense 
with  quite  yet;  nor  that  of  the  Oak  and  the 
Reed;  nor  even  that  of  the  Fox  and  the  Grapes. 
If  you  find  a  fable  do  not  hasten  to  throw  it  away, 
but  inspect  it  carefull3^  for  you  will  find  the  rich- 
est of  human  wisdom  written  in  it.  But  as  mat- 
ter of  fact  the  only  fable  I  know  of  in  the  range 
of  Biblical  history  before  us  is  Jotham's  very 
beautiful  and  significant  tale  in  the  ninth  chapter 
of  Judges,  about  the  trees  going  forth  to  appoint 
a  king,  and  passing  by  the  vine  and  the  olive  to 
anoint  the  bramble.  Something  that  may  have 
application  in  American  politics.  That  is  the 
only  fable  that  I  remember  in  this  long  line  of 
history  we  have  before  us.  That  something 
which  we  have  regarded  as  history  may  turn 
out  to  be  some  other  species  of  writing  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  lose  faith  in  the  trust- 
worthiness of  Old  Testament  history — no  reason 
why  we  should  set  aside  as  an   old  wives'  fable 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  189 

the  document  we  formerly  considered  as  histor- 
ical. 

For  instance,  time  has  been  when  the  historic 
verity  of  the  transactions  narrated  in  the  book 
of  Job  would  have  been   stoutly  insisted  upon. 

But  Job  has  not  become  a  subject  of  sport  by 
being  regarded  as  pure  drama.  Better  study 
that  drama  instead  of  "shedding  it  as  a  tadpole 
does  its  tail."  Better  study  the  historic  allusions 
that  mark  the  time  and  place  of  its  composition. 
We  shall  find  that  they  will  bring  out  some- 
thing which  we  shall  want  to  hold  as  history. 
There  is  another  book  about  which  mind  is  in  a 
transitory  state — the  book  of  Jonah.  What  if 
the  whole  book  is  drama  or  epos  as  much  as 
Job?  Our  misunderstanding  of  a  book  is  no 
reason  for  casting  it  away.  The  book  of  Jonah 
is  still  one  of  the  most  exquisite  analyses  of  the 
working  of  the  human  mind  under  a  sense  of 
duty,  at  the  same  time  wrestling  with  its  own 
counter  temptations,  with  its  passions,  its  fitful 
moods.  Make  a  fable  of  the  book  of  Jonah  if 
you  please, and  then  you  had  better  attend  to  its 
moral.  It  is  no  objection  to  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's 
Progress  that  its  characters  are  so  lifelike  that 
you  think  them  almost  veritable   living    beings. 


190  BIOGRAPHICAL  HIS  TOR  Y 

It  ought  to  be  no  objection  to  Jonah  that  it  has 
the  same  vivid  excellence  you  praise  in  Bunyan. 
But  Jonah  is  true  in  its  historic  allusions  to  the 
dim  old  time  in  which  it  appeared.  Before  Rome 
was,  here  was  Tarshiah  and  there  was  far  Nine- 
veh. In  that  morning  twilight  of  history  ships 
went  from  Joppa  to  Tarshish,  and  Nineveh  was 
the  seat  of  empire  in  the  east. 

If  a  man  is  obliged  to  alter  his  own  notions  of 
the  character  of  writings,  that  ought  not  to  de- 
grade the  writings. 

Let  them  be  judged  by  their  original  intent. 
Instead  of  the  flirt  of  conceit  when  a  man 
changes  his  views  of  ancient  writings,  let  him 
clothe  himself  with  the  garments  of  humiliation 
for  his  former  misconceptions  of  them. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  bar  the  actuality  of  the 
personal  fortunes  of  Job  or  Jonah.  On  the  doc- 
trine of  probabilities  almost  anything  may  once 
happen,  and  nobody  is  in  position  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  the  occurrences  set  forth  in  each. 
Before  it  happened  nobody  would  have  given 
anything  for  the  chances  of  the  life  of  the  man 
through  whose  head  a  crowbar, or  tamping  iron, 
"three  feet  and  seven  inches  in  length  and  one 
and  one-fourth  inch  in  diameter"  was  driven  by 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  191 

a  discharge  of  powder  while  he  was  blasting 
rocks.  The  iron  entered  beneath  the  jaw  and 
came  out  through  the  top  of  the  head,  "covered 
with  blood  and  brains."  Yet  this  man  lived 
twelve  and  a  half  years  after  this  event,  with  no 
essential  "impairment"  of  his  functions,  physical 
or  mental.  No  man  is  in  condition  to  say  that 
the  possibilities  of  life,  under  suspended  anima- 
tion, were  drawn  on  more  heavily  in  Jonah's 
case  than  they  were  in  the  case  of  this  man  with 
this  blunt  iron  instrument  crashing  through  his 
brains.  The  Jonah  story  may  be  true  without 
any  miracle  in  it  other  than  the  miracle  which 
abides  in  all  extraordinary  transactions  in  nature. 
I  have  turned  aside  to  discuss  these  collateral 
cases,  but  they  do  not  belong  to  the  grain  of 
the  history  before  us.  Job  and  Jonah  are  episodic 
in  nature — by-plays — they  are  not  invertebrated 
in  the  Biblical  history.  Nothing  depends  upon 
them,  nothing  grows  out  of  them.  They  are 
but  rills,  or  mere  eddies  if  you  please,  in  the 
strong  historic  stream  that  flows  from  Abraham 
to  Christ.  I  also  want  to  save  the  point  of  error 
in  some  chronicle  in  this  history  here  and  there. 
Some  error  of  some  minor  historic  importance 
may  have  been  put  originally  in  the  text  or  may 


192  BIOGRAPHICAL  HIS  TOR  Y 

have  crept  in,  in  the  course  of  transcription  of 
manuscripts.  Give  what  may  be  necessary  to 
square  with  the  facts  in  all  such  cases — that 
will  not  break  the  line  or  cast  doubt  on  its  main 
drift. 

There  is  one  very  popular  error  just  now 
against  which  young  people  should  be  on  their 
guard.  The  tendency  in  certain  quarters  is  to 
resolve  all  ancient  history  into  sun  myths.  Now, 
that  there  are  such  things  as  sun  myths  is  true 
enough.  The  death  and  resurrection  of  Osiris 
is  an  unquestionable  sun  myth.  Osiris  going 
down  to  death,  going  down  to  the  under  world, 
is  the  setting  of  the  sun ;  the  resurrection  of 
Osiris  is  the  sun  rising.  So  there  are  sun  myths 
setting  forth  the  contests  of  the  sun  and  the  ele- 
ments, the  defeats  and  successes  of  the  sun  as 
witnessed  in  the  changes  of  the  seasons. 

With  some  people  it  is  only  necessary  for  one 
idea  to  get  lodged  in  the  mind, and  forthwith  by 
it  they  have  a  solvent  for  every  difficulty.  Sin, 
sickness  and  the  hues  of  a  sunset  sk}'  with  man}^ 
are  all  owing  to  electricity.  Now  there  are 
certain  people  of  the  much  speaking  and  scrib- 
bling kind  who  happen  to  have  heard  of  a  sun 
myth, and  they  apply  it  to  all  Old  Testament  his- 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  193 

tory.  The  story  of  Abraham  is  a  sun  myth. 
The  story  of  Samson  is  a  sun  myth.  One  is 
weak  in  the  historic  sense  who  cannot  discern 
the  difference  between  fact  and  fancy  better 
than  that.  The  loosest  kind  of  addle-headed- 
ness  is  that  which  lets  facts  slip  away  in  a  gen- 
eral swash  oT  idealization.  If  Abraham  was  a 
sun  myth, then  General  Washington  was.  Wash- 
ington  had  his  advances  and  retreats,  just  as  the 
sun  does  in  the  seasons.  Valley  Forge  repre- 
sents the  sun  in  winter,  and  Yorktown  a  July 
sun  victorious  over  frost  and  snow,  or  the  ripe 
sun  of  autumn  "bringing  in  the  sheaves."  As 
for  Samson,  there  is  no  more  reason  for  deny- 
ing his  historic  character  than  there  is  for  deny- 
ing the  historic  standing  of  Milo  of  Crotona  or 
of  Doctor  Winship  of  Boston.  That  Samson 
capered  up  and  down  the  hills  of  Palestine  and 
cut  up  grim  pranks  on  the  Philistines  is  doubt- 
less fact.  When  you  make  Samson  a  sun  myth 
you  may  turn  over  to  the  same  sort  of  literature 
Miles  Standish  and  Daniel  Boone. 

Embellishment  may  have  crept  into  the  story 
of  Samson  here  and  there;  perhaps  it  was  not 
forty  foxes  that  he  caught— perhaps  only  thirty- 
seven,  maybe  only  one — we  will  not  haggle  for 


194  BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY 

a  fox  or  two,  if  any  one  can  show  corruption  of 
numbers;  we  may  have  read  his  songs,  or  songs 
about  him,  into  prose;  but  you  cannot  work  out 
of  history  this  strong  man  and  grim  joker  who 
hewed  out  a  path  for  monotheism  with  the  jaw- 
bone of  an  ass. 

Therenever  was  a  more  realistic  people  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  than  the  descendants  of 
Abraham.  Here  they  are,  and  they  have  had 
an  uninterrupted  national  history  as  long  as  an}^ 
other  race  of  people  existing  on  the  earth.  They 
have  always  had  profound  reverence  for  facts. 
They  have  always  been  hard-headed  enough  to 
know  the  real  from  the  ideal.  You  cannot  im- 
pose upon  a  Jew  to-day  a  bogus  coin.  The  old 
historians  of  Israel  seem  to  have  tried  the  ring 
of  facts  as  well  as  the  modern  Jew  trader  the 
ring  of  metal.  As  a  consequence  you  have  a 
long  and  a  reliable  reach  backward  over  time 
in  Jewish  biographical  history. 

Od€  further  word.  The  term  tradition  is  in 
ill  repute;  we  ought  to  keep  distinct  two  mean- 
ings in  that  term.  Tradition  is  a  poor  founda- 
tion for  morals.  That  is  to  say,  we  ought  not 
to  adopt  a  course  of  moral  action  merely  be- 
cause   it    is    traditional — because  our  ancestors 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  195 

have  so  thought  and  acted.  "You  have  made 
the  word  of  God  void  through  your  traditions," 
covers  the  ground  of  this  meaning. 

But  tradition  on  historic  ground  ought  to  have 
an  acceptable  sense.  It  is  or  may  be  there 
equivalent  to  history — what  is  handed  down  to 
us  from  former  generations.  There  is  no  history 
covering  so  great  extent  of  time  so  valuable  as 
the  tradition  of  Israel  in  our  Scripture. 

NOTE    I. 

« 

The  Pentateuchal  question  is  now  in  the  field 
with  its  marked  tendency  to  the  disintegration 
of  Moses  and  of  all  his  works.  It  is  premature 
for  one  to  predict  what  will  be  the  exact  or  even 
proximate  result  of  this  inquisition.  The  cases 
may  not  be  quite  parallel,  to  be  sure,  but  one 
cannot  help  remembering  what  has  been  the  re- 
sult of  the  attempt  at  destructive  criticism  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  end  has  been  a  plain  non- 
suit of  the  disintegrators.  Just  now  new  items 
of  testimony  are  coming  in  on  that  elder  ques- 
tion,and  they  all  bear  heavily  in  the  direction  of 
the  justice  of  the  judgment  that  had  been  ren- 
dered. In  the  Johannean  controversy  the  "  theos- 
ophist  of  the  second  century"  has  been  relegated 


196  BIOGRAPHICAL  HISTORY 

to  the  cloud-land  of  the  fancy  of  his  creators. 
John  holds  the  field  with  confirmed  title  much 
as  tradition  gave  him  to  us. 

The  so-called  higher  criticism  will  yet  have 
to  settle  accounts  with  the  archaeologist.  The 
indications  of  the  day  are  that  the  spade  of  the 
objectivist  will  triumph  over  the  pen  of  the  sub- 
jectivist. 

After  all  allowances  are  made  as  hereinbefore 
set  forth,  we  shall  probably  get  Moses  pretty 
much  as  we  have  him — the  founder  of  the  He- 
brew nation,  the  moral,  civil  and  criminal  legis- 
lator for  a  people.  It  will  probably  be  found 
that  he  was  the  author  of  a  very  much  larger 
section  of  the  religious  ceremonial  law  than  even 
conservative  higher  critics  allow.  Primitive 
peoples  are  nothing  if  not  elaborate  in  their  re- 
ligious rituals.  Moses  would  have  been  a 
blunderer  if  he  had  left  Israel  without  ornate 
ceremonies  for  his  religion. 

NOTE  II. 

Goldwin  Smith  subscribes  to  the  reduction  of 
Abraham  to  a  myth.  If  there  is  anything  that 
would  naturally  be  regarded  as  a  myth  in  the 
history,  of  Abraham,  it   is    the   stor}^  of   the  war 


FROM  ABRAHAM  TO  CHRIST  197 

between  the  kings  of  the  vale  of  Siddim  and  of 
the  neighboring  regions  on  the  one  hand,  and 
on  the  other  those  of  the  far  east.  But  Chedor- 
Jaomer  and  Tidal  king  of  nations  appear  to  be 
verified  b}'  the  spade.  Aher  that  it  seems  sim- 
ple to  balk  at  the  historicity  of  Abraham. 


IX. 

HISTORY,  TRIBAL    AND  SYNTHETIC. 

We  have  treated  of  the  Biographical  History 
of  the  Bible  from  Christ  back  to  Abraham. 

We  will  now  look  at  an  earlier  history  which 
the  Bible  puts  before  us,  which  I  think  may 
well  be  termed — History,  Tribal  and  Synthetic. 
The  significance  and  appropriateness  of  the  title 
I  have  chosen  will  readily  be  seen.  We  are  to 
deal  less  with  individual  men,  more  with  tribes, 
peoples  and  races.  Our  attention  is  drawn  not 
to  leading  personages  in  a  nation,  but  to  groups 
of  peoples — to  nations  and  tongues. 

Before  engaging  in  the  discussion  of  the  main 
topic  I  wish  to  utter  a  word  on  a  related  matter. 

In  order  to  detract  from  the  merits  of  the 
Bible  we  are  told  very  frequently  that  we  have 
our  sacred  books  and  that  other  nations  have 
their  sacred  books,  and  it  is  very  likely  said 
that  the  books  of  other  nations  are  as  good  for 
them,  and  perhaps  might  be  for  us,  as  the  books 

198 


HIS  TOR.  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YNTHE  TIC  199 

to  which  we  give  so  much  reverence.  I  can 
never  traverse  that  objection  to  the  Bible,  or 
depreciation  of  it,  without  stopping  to  say,  our 
sacred  books  are  not  ours.  We  never  have  had 
anything  that  we  called  sacred  books,  and  if  we 
did  have,  we  gave  them  up  long  ago  for  the 
sacred  books  of  a  people  and  a  race  very  widely 
separated  from  ourselves.  Our  ancestors  took 
up  these  books — borrowed  these  books,  because 
they  seemed  to  them  the  best  books  that  had 
ever  been  brought  to  their  notice.  Yet  they 
came  from  far  to  us  as  respects  space,  time  and 
race.  So  that  in  lauding  the  Bible  we  are  not 
praising  our  own  books.  We  are  speaking  of 
books  which  have  found  us  rather  than  we 
them.  Our  missionaries  will  do  well  to  get 
possession  of  this  idea,  so  that  in  going  among 
non-Christian  peoples  they  could  be  divested 
utterly  of  the  suspicion  that  they  were  recom- 
mending their  own  wares.  If  a  man  goes 
among  the  heathen  the  first  thing  he  wants 
to  do  is  to  impress  upon  them  that  the  Bible  that 
he  brings  is  something  he  has  found,  that  neither 
he  nor  his  people  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
composition  of  a  line  of  it,  but  that  he  and  his 
people  had  found  this  treasure,  which  had  been 


200  HISTORY,   TRIBAL  Al^D  SYNTHETIC 

given  them  by  another  people,  so  good  that  they 
wanted  to  put  it  in  the  hands  of  all  peoples  on 
the  face  of  the  earth.  There  is  not  as  clear-cut 
conception  as  there  ought  to  be  that  the  Bible  is 
not  our  book  save  b}^  adoption. 

"God  shall  enlarge  Japheth  and  he  shall  dwell 
in  the  tents  of  Shem."  The  children  of  Japheth 
are  the  rulers  of  the  world,  yet  every  soul  of 
them,  save  the  Brahmin  of  India,  from  farthest 
Caspian  to  "where  rolls  the  Oregon,"  has 
adopted  a  Semitic  religion. 

The  induction  from  history  is  that  the  process 
is  simply  dela3^ed    in    the   case  of  the  Brahmin. 

There  is  something  weird  in  the  anticipatory 
conception,  in  an  early  age  of  human  history, 
of  a  process  on  which  we  look  as  accomplished 
fact. 

But  this  is  not  the  main  thought  I  have  here. 
I  cannot  stop  here  to  compare  the  Scriptures 
with  the  writings  called  sacred  or  otherwise  of 
other  peoples  in  other  respects.  But  what  I  do 
wish  to  say  is,  that  sacred  books  other  than  the 
Bible  have  no  historic  character  or  will  not  bear 
examination  in  the  forum  of  history.  They  do 
not  carry  history.  The  Vedas  of  the  Hindoos 
are    poetry    and    philosophy.     The    writings  of 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  201 

Confucius  were  mostly  of  a  political  character. 
You  will  not  find  the  sacred  books  of  any  of  the 
heathen  peoples  that  will  give  a  course  of  his- 
tory, of  biographical  cast  like  that  in  the  Bible 
from  Christ  back  to  Abraham.  Then  you  will 
not  find  one  of  them  that  will  give  you  a  sweep 
over  national  histories  like  that  to  which  your 
attention  is  called  to-day.  If  such  work  is  at- 
tempted by  these  other  sacred  books,  the  attempt 
will  not  stand  a  moment's  examination.  Who- 
ever is  deceived  by  the  attempt, so  far  as  history 
is  concerned,  to  muddle  minds  by  heaving  the 
Bible  into  a  heap  with  the  sacred  books  of  the 
heathen  nations,  is  not  wise.  If  the  Bible  is  not 
distinguished  from  all  these  other  sacred  books 
b}' its  monotheism  and  morality,  it  is  by  the 
trustworthiness  of  its  historic  record.  Just  as 
far  back  as  research  has  been  able  to  push  in- 
quisition, so  far  has  the  Bible  history  been  found 
reliable. 

We  want  now  to  get  an  outline  view  of  the 
tribe  and  race  histories  of  men  as  they  are  set 
forth  in  the  book  of  Genesis.  And  now  bear  in 
mind  where  we  are.  We  have  pushed  reliable 
biographical  history  back  to  the  eleventh  chap- 
ter of  Genesis.      Historic  troubles  of  any  essen- 


202  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

tial  importance  which  we  may  have,  will  lie 
before  that  point  and  date. 

We  have  found  marked  men  dotting  the  whole 
line  under  view — men  who  cannot  be  puffed  out 
of  the  realm  of  fact  into  sun  myth  or  the  smoke 
evolved    from    anybody's   inner   consciousness. 

And  now  a  word  as  to  disposition,  as  to  atti- 
tude of  mind  respecting  the  record  that  lies  be- 
fore us.  An  old  chronicle,  3^et  covering  time 
of  very  much  later  date  than  the  time  we  con- 
sider, says  of  the  matters  treated  in  it,  "These 
are  ancient  things."  We  approach  something 
very  ancient.  The  events  of  which  the  record 
treats  lie  back  in  the  dimness  and  obscurity  of 
early  human  history.  The  record  itself  must 
be  very  old — so  old  that  we  have  no  tradition 
who  wrote  it.  If  Moses  had  anything  to  do  with 
it  he  could  have  been  only  a  late  editor.  Some 
similar  traditions  on  other  historic  lines  can  be 
traced  back  to  a  pre-Hebrew  period.  The  type 
of  mind — of  race,  methods  of  thinking  out  from 
which  the  record  came  was  very  different  from 
our  own.  It  would  conceive  and  state  facts  in 
a  very  different  way  from  that  we  should  em- 
ploy— especially  facts  of  synthetic  order  such  as 
would  set  forth  type  experiences   or  the  origin, 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  203 

the  fates  and  fortunes  of  races  and  of  groups  in 
races.  The  special  may  stand  for  the  general — 
a  name  for  a  nation.  Now  we  need  to  be  doubly 
on  our  guard  as  to  our  own  mental  moods  to- 
wards a  record,  behind  which  lies  such  a  state 
of  facts.  It  is  easy  enough  when  we  come  to 
something  obscure — something  that  taxes  our 
knowledge,  that  tries  our  powers  both  of  analy- 
sis and  of  synthesis — it  is  easy  enough  to  cry 
out,  "An  old  wives'  fable,"  and  toss  the  record 
away.  But  in  so  doing  we  should  in  all  prob- 
ability^ only  be  exposing  ourselves  to  the  con- 
tempt of  the  studious  and  the  thoughtful.  If  we 
should  find  a  fable  here  in  this  old  record  we 
would  reverently  pause  upon  it  to  detect,  if  we 
could,  the  sort  of  moral  and  philosophical 
thought  the  men  of  those  ancient  times  had  be- 
fore their  minds,  and  embodied  in  fable.  That 
were  worth  our  while,  were  it  not,  to  look  in 
upon  the  problems  of  moral  and  philosophical 
thought  upon  which  the  sages  of  primal  times 
were  engaged? 

We  will  reverently  treat  a  fable.  But  we 
shall  find  little  or  nothing  of  that  in  the  section 
of  the  record  we  are  treating;  for  a  fable  is  not 
often  the  medium  of  historic  truth;  it   is   rather 


204  HIS  TOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THE  TIC 

a  mode  of  conveyance  of  that  which  is  philo- 
sophical or  ethical.  We  may  find  the  myth  or  the 
story  which  in  concrete  form  conve3?s  to  us  tribal 
or  race  history.  Here  let  us  be  reverent  as  be- 
cometh  students  seeking  to  trace  the  path  of 
any  single  ray  of  light  that  might  guide  us  back 
into  primitive  times.  There  are  difficulties  con- 
nected with  the  interpretation  of  this  old  record. 
But  I  am  sure  that  scholarship  is  showing  that 
our  difficulties  spring  from  our  ignorance,  not 
that  this  record  is  inaccurate  or  of  trifling  char- 
acter. 

Now  let  us  take  a  station  where  we  can  see  at 
once  what  is  the  main  character  of  the  section 
of  the  record  we  have  in  view.  In  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Genesis  you  strike  Abraham.  Script- 
ure history  this  side  of  him  is  predominantly 
biographical,  prior  to  him  synthetic,  generic, 
tribal,  national. 

Take  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  for  exam- 
ple. Pass  to  the  enumeration  of  the  sons  of 
Ham.  You  find  Mizraim  given  as  a  son  of  Ham. 
But  Mizraim  is  a  plural  and  stood  for  both 
Egypts,  upper  and  lower.  That  you  are  deal- 
ing under  that  term  with  tribes  or  nations  is  seen 
plainly  enough  when  you    read   lower   down — 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  205 

"And  Mizraim  begat  Ludim,  and  Anamim,  and 
Lehabim,  and  Naphtuhim,  and  Pathrusim,  and 
Casluhim  (out  of  whom  came  Philistim),  and 
Caphtorim" — for  those  terms  are  all  plurals 
("im"  is  a  Hebrew  plural),  the  designations  of 
peoples  sprung  from  Egyptian   stock. 

Take  another  case;  take  the  genealogical 
history  of  Canaan,  another  son  of  Ham.  "And 
Canaan  begat  Sidon  his  first-born, and  Heth, and 
the  Jebusite,  and  the  Amorite,  and  the  Girgas- 
ite,  and  the  Hivite,  and  the  Arkite,  and  the 
Sinite,  and  the  Arvadite,  and  the  Zemarite,  and 
the  Hamathite."  Then  take  the  concluding 
comment,  which  is  applied  as  a  common  formula 
to  the  history  of  the  descendants  of  Japheth  and 
Shem  as  well  as  Ham — "These  are  the  sons  of 
Ham,  after  their  families,  after  their  tongues,  in 
their  countries,  and  in  their  nations," — and 
you  have  something  before  you  which  teaches 
that  you  are  dealing  with  history  of  a  very  gen- 
eral character. 

We  are  no  doubt  in  this  tenth  chapter  of 
Genesis  dealing  with  tribal  designations,  as  we 
are  when  in  Caesar  we  read  of  the  Suevi,^dui, 
Belgae,  Segusiani,  Aquitani,  Sequani,  Helvetii. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  maintained  with  much  plausi- 


206  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

bility,  to  use  no  stronger  term,  that  in  all  the 
names, even  to  Shem,  Ham  and  Japheth,  we  are 
dealing  with  tribe  or  race  names  rather  than 
with  those  of  individuals.  Take  such  a  case  as 
that  ''Canaan  begat  Sidon  his  first-born/'  Now 
Sidon,as  we  know,  was  the  name  of  a  Phoenician 
city,  and  the  probability  is  that  the  intent  of  the 
author  of  the  record  was  to  say  that  Sidon  was 
the  first  offshoot  of  the  Canaan  stock,  as  the 
Jebusite  and  the  Amorite  and  the  Hivite  were 
subsequent  tribal  dispersions.  The  difficulties 
on  this  supposition  are  not  greater  than  will  oc- 
cur in  an  attempt  to  construe  any  of  these  names 
as  limited  in  application  to  an  individual.  The 
tribe  name  may  well  have  been  derived  from 
that  of  an  individual.  But  even  to  Shem,  Ham 
and  Japheth  we  have  here  probably  national  or 
race  designations.  The  difficulty  in  this  old 
record  is  to  tell  when  you  are  dealing  with  an 
individual  or  with  a  race  or  tribe  name.  Some- 
times you  seem  to  be  dealing  with  one  and  the 
next  instant  it  slides  into  the  other.  But  what 
else  could  ^^ou  expect  with  "ancient  things?" 

You  can  illustrate  from  the  Bible  itself. 

When  Israel  is  mentioned  you  will  have  to 
study  the   context   to   determine  whether  Jacob 


HIS  TOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THE  TIC  207 

the  individual,  or  the  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  his  descendants  in  their  national  capacit}'  are 
signified.  This  repeated  reference  to  families, 
tongues,  countries  and  nations  compels  the  con- 
clusion that  race  problems  are  what  are  partic- 
ularly in  view.  We  need  not  make  a  stumbling 
block  out  of  the  statement  that  Sidon  was  the 
first-born  of  Canaan,  any  more  than  we  need  to 
put  one  in  the  way  when  3'ou  read  in  Hosea, 
"When  Israel  was  a  child, then  I  loved  him  and 
called  my  son  out  of  Egypt." 

The  synthetic  method  here  employed  may  be 
illustrated  in  this  way  on  our  own  race  line: 
And  Japheth  or  Aryan  begat  Hindoo  and  Teuton 
and  Slav,  and  Greek,  and  Roman,  and  Kelt. 
And  Kelt  begat  Gaul  and  Briton,  and  Irish,  and 
Welsh,  and  Gael.  And  Teuton  begat  German 
and  Dutch  and  English.  These  are  the  sons  of 
Aryan  after  their  families,  after  their  tongues, 
in  their  lands,  in  their  nations. 

The  wonderful  thing  about  this  tenth  chapter 
is  its  accuracy.  Mr.  Gladstone  says  that  this 
chapter  is  the  most  valuable  summary  of  ethnog- 
raphy known  to  man. 

Read  Caesar's  Commentaries  and  you  are 
struck  with  the  remarkable  familiarity  they  ex- 


208  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

hibit  with  the  location  and  affinities  of  the  tribes 
in  Germany  and  Gaul,  with  whom  Caesar  came 
in  contact  or  respecting  whom  he  gathered  in- 
formation. 

You  call  that  histor}^,  and  jou  cause  your 
children  to  read  Caesar  as  an  introduction  to 
the  Latin  language  and  as  a  foundation  of 
modern  west-European  history.  You  bring  no 
railing  accusation  against  Caesar  as  superstitious 
— easily  imposed  on — as  the  dupe  of  the  story- 
telling propensity  of  a  credulous  age  and  of 
barbarous  tribes.  But  now  turn  back  to  the 
tenth  chapter  of  Genesis  and  you  find  Caesar's 
work  done,  one  cannot  say  how  many  centuries 
before  his  time,  from  a  Mesopotamian  center  of 
outlook, as  his  from  one  in  Germany  and  Gaul — 
done  as  minutely  and  as  accurately  in  its  mi- 
nuteness as  his  work  was  done.  There  is  one 
element  in  which  the  old  historian  excels  Csesar, 
and  it  is  an  element  of  supreme  import.  Caesar 
never  attempted  to  solve  the  ultimate  race  prob- 
lem of  the  peoples  of  whom  he  treated,  and  the 
author  of  Genesis  X.  did.  The  latter,  in  treat- 
ing of  his  tribes,  has  indicated  their  kinship  and 
traced  out  their  origin.  He  has  attempted  to 
refer  to  an  ultimate  unity  all   the   races   of  men 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  /IND  SYNTHETIC  209 

with  which  one  would  come  in  contact  as  he 
went  out  from  a  Mesopotamian  center  to  the  four 
quarters  of  the  compass.  An  attempt  one  would 
think  sufficiently  ambitious  to  begin  with — cer- 
tainly of  immense  importance,  if  it  were  success- 
ful, to  end  with.  Well,  the  wonderful  thing  is 
that  the  attempt  well  stands  the  rack  of  modern 
investigation.  It  ma}^  safely  be  said  that  from 
the  ancient  age  in  which  this  race  chronicle  in 
Genesis  was  written  to  a  time  within  the  mem- 
ory of  men  still  living,  it  was  not  possible  for 
a  child  of  Japheth  to  tell  whether  it  was  correct 
or  not.  But  now  the  door  to  verification  is  flung 
wide  open,  and  entrance  through  the  door  has 
brought  out  such  results  as  you  have  heard  em- 
bodied in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Gladstone. 
Philology  is  a  late  born  science.  That  the  his- 
tory of  men, of  their  race  relations,  can  be  shown 
by  the  study  of  their  language  is  an  achieve- 
ment, we  may  say,  of  the  scholarship  of  this 
centurj'.  At  any  rate,  wide  confidence  in  the 
trustworth}^  result  of  philological  investigation 
is  a  growth  in  this  century.  But  now  philology 
with  its  keen  detective  apparatus  turns  back 
upon  the  race  problems  set  forth  in  the  tenth 
chapter  of  Genesis  and  declares  that  they  were 
in  the  main  correctly  solved. 


210  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AhID  SYNTHETIC 

This  curious  fact  lies  on  the  face  of  that  chap- 
ter also.  Our  late  science  was  an  old  science. 
It  is  expressly  said  that  the  classification  in 
Genesis  was  on  philological  grounds — that  the 
tribes  were  assigned  relationship  from  philolog- 
ical considerations.  Language  was  made  the 
base  of  classification.  Now  look  at  the  magni- 
tude of  that  problem.  When  the  tenth  chapter 
of  Genesis  was  written  the  varieties  of  Semitic 
and  Aryan  stocks  were  spread  abroad  on  the 
face  of  the  earth — not  as  widely  as  now,  to  be 
sure,  but  yet  on  those  base  positions  from  which 
their  subsequent  movements  can  be  traced — yet 
this  whole  complex  position  is  sifted  into  proper 
elements  and  then  a  correct  sj^nthesis  made  of 
them.  The  sons  of  Japheth,  or  peoples,  we 
should  say, of  Indo-European  origin, are  grouped 
together  by  their  tongues,  in  their  nations,  and 
the  work  seems  to  be  correctly  done.  Consider 
that  they  had  not  only  built  up  different  nations 
but  different  "tongues."  The  old  Aryan  tongue 
had,  as  our  modern  scientists  would  say,  differ- 
entiated into  several  distinct  stocks  of  language. 

The  sons  of  Japheth  are  located  just  where 
they  should  be,  as  inhabitants  of  the  "Isles." 
They  stand  at  the  entrance  of  the  ways  leading 


HIS  TOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  SYN  THE  TIC  21 1 

from  Europe  into  Asia.  The  quite  recent  theory 
that  the  original  home  of  the  Aryan  was  in 
Europe  rather  than  in  Asia, receives  confirmation 
rather  than  contradiction  from  the  location  of 
the  Japhethan  tribes  set  forth  in  this  tenth 
chapter  of  Genesis.  There  is  in  it,  too,  a  glance 
over  on  the  eastern  Aryan  in  "Madai"  (Medes), 
disclosing  a  knowledge  at  some  early  day  of 
linguistic  relations  which  the  philological  science 
of  this  century  adopts  as  true.  The  Aryan  is 
caught  in  this  chapter  on  his  march  to  the  east 
and  south  in  Asia, or  some  laggard  band  on  that 
traiL     A  fact  most  worthy  of  attention. 

The  same  work  of  grouping,  together  the 
Semite  nations  by  their  tongues  is  done  also. 
And  there  appears  to  be  no  confusion  in  this 
complex  problem.  Modern  investigation  con- 
firms the  correctness  of  this  work. 

We  may  well  stand  in  awe  before  the  majesty 
of  the  knowledge  set  forth  in  the  tenth  chapter 
of  Genesis!  What  old  Csesar  was  it  that  had 
skirmished  round  over  the  then  known  world 
from  the  Tigris  valley  on  the  east  to  the  Greek 
Isles  on  the  west,  that  had  basked  in  the  torrid 
heats  of  upper  Egypt  and  frozen  in  the  snows  of 
the  Caucasus?     What  inquisitive  old  Herodotus 


212  HISTORY,   TRIBAL  AND  SYh'THET IC 

was  it  that  had  gone  over  all  the  ground, learned 
languages  and  dialects  and  referred  the  peoples 
speaking  them  to  their  proper  origins — analyzed, 
combined  and  reduced  the  whole  problem  to  a 
few  simple  elements  that  stand  indestructible 
as  the  pyramids?  You  are  called  upon  to  do 
two  things,  to  reverence  the  solid  scientific  char- 
acter of  the  ancient  scholarship  behind  this  rec- 
ord, and  to  reverence  the  trustworthiness  of 
ancient  tradition. 

This  chapter  does  not  resolve  the  whole  human 
situation.  If  it  did,  why  is  it  the  tenth  and  not 
the  second  chapter  of  Genesis?  There  is  a 
wider  reach  to  the  human  race  than  that  covered 
by  this  chapter.  That  problem  is  deep,  dark  and 
wide.  Foundation  is  laid  for  it  in  the  chapters 
preceding  this.  Archaeology  and  geology 
combined  are  on  the  road  to  do  for  the  human 
history  set  forth  in  those  previous  chapters  just 
what  philology  has  done  for  this. 

Philologically,  certainly  Ham  is  a  puzzle. 
On  what  principle  peoples  are  grouped  together 
as  children  of  Ham  is  not  clear.  Why  the 
Eg3'ptians  should  be  classed  with  the  Phoeni- 
cians and  the  Canaanites  is  not  onl}'  not  apparent, 
but  on  its  face  presents  a  difficulty  which  seems 


HISTORY,   TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  213 

irresolvable.  The  Egyptians  did  not  speak  a 
Semitic  language  and  the  Phoenicians  and  the 
Canaanites  did.  The  latter  on  linguistic  grounds 
should  be  classed  with  the  children  of  Shem. 
But  a  key  to  a  solution  of  this  philological  diffi 
culty  may  be  found  from  extra  Biblical  sources. 
There  may  be  a  history  behind  the  history  dis- 
closed in  the  Bible.  Indeed,  there  are  hints  in 
the  Bible  of  such  history  not    by   it  elaborated. 

Briefly,  Ham  seems  originally  to  have  been 
Turanian  and  then  to  have  included  all  the 
Semitic  hybrids  that  came  out  of  the  successive 
immigrations  into  lands  inhabited  by  Turanian 
peoples. 

Abraham  seems  not  to  have  been  a  lone 
pianeer  to  the  land  of  Canaan,  but  to  have  fol- 
lowed in  the  wake  of  an  overfiovv  of  his  race-kin- 
dred sufficient  to  have  impressed  its  tongue  on  an 
original  Turanian  stratum  before  he  arrived  in 
the  country.  This  emigration  had  force  enough 
to  impress  its  tongue,  but  not  enough  to  impress 
its  religion  on  the  primitive  people.  You  can 
find  illustrations  of  such  result  in  mixing  popu- 
lations,or  of  something  akin, throughout  history. 
Anglo-Saxon  customs  and  laws  survive  beneath 
the  imposition  of  the  Latinized   French  tongue 


214  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

of  the  Norman.  A  reason  why  such  insistence  is 
placed  on  the  non-confusion  of  Israel  with  the 
surrounding  nations  may  be  that  there  was  a  bad 
example  before  their  own  ej^es  of  the  degradation 
in  that  way  of  .their  own  kith  and  kin. 

Religion  would  seem  to  have  had  some  influ- 
ence over  this  classification  in  the  tenth  chapter 
of  Genesis.  Though  the  tongue  might  be  Sem- 
itic, the  prevailing  blood  and  custom  of  Phoe- 
nicia and  Canaan  was  not,  and  so  all  its  inhabi- 
tants were  swept  into  an  "omnium  gatherum" 
under  Ham,  as  a  sort  of  waste-basket  for  all  the 
nations  not  Semitic  or  Japhethan. 

To  a  dweller  in  Mesopotamia  the  phenomenon 
of  a  hybrid  people,  the  result  of  a  union  of  sons 
of  Japheth  with  Turanians,  would  not  be  a  promi- 
nent matter,  and  so  no  notice  is  taken  of  such 
fact;  and  yet  we  know  that  there  was  such  union 
in  Phrygia.  The  western  blood  finally  became 
dominant  in  Phrygia, as  the  Semitic  in  Israel  in 
Canaan.  But  in  neither  case  was  the  victory 
clear.  Influences  from  the  underlying  Turanian 
stratum  persisted  till  very  late  dates  in  both 
lands.  Superstition,  dark  and  forbidding,  was  a 
common  characteristic  of  this  Turanian  or 
Hamitic  influence.- 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  215 

We  regard  the  Turk  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria 
as  an  interloper,  but  he  is  onlj'  there  coming  to 
his  own.  His  kin,  so  archaeology  says,  were 
first  on  the  ground.  The  Turkish  Empire,  as 
it  lies  down  over  western  Asia,  covers  ground 
over  portions  of  which  you  can  pick  out  race 
dominance  in  something  like  the  following 
order: 

Turanian — Primal. 

Aryan — Western. 

Turanian — ^Hittite. 

Aryan — Cimmerian. 

Semite — Assyrian. 

Aryan — Greek. 

Aryan — Eastern,  Persian. 

Aryan — Greek. 

Aryan — 'Roman. 

Semite — Saracen. 

Turanian — Turk. 

The  elements  out  of  which  such  a  history 
could  be  divided  were  under  the  vision  of  this 
ancient  ethnologist,  and  its  components  indi- 
cated. 

In  the  old  record  the  inferiority  of  Canaan  or 
Ham  or  the  Turanian  to  the  Semite  and  the 
Japhethan  is  predicted.    Canaan  is  to  be  a  serv- 


21 6  HIS  TOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THE  TIC 

ant  of  both  Shem  and  Japheth.  Well,  that  is 
history.  On  the  old  common  ground  in  the  east 
the  Semite  forged  ahead  to  supremacy.  The 
sons  of  Japheth  in  like  manner  became  domi- 
nant over  the  primitive  stocks  whenever  they 
came  in  contact  with  them.  The  present  ex- 
ception to  this  law  seems  to  be  the  rule  of  the 
Turk  in  Asia  Minor.  But  it  is  an  existing  faith 
that  the  days  of  the  exception  are  numbered. 
The  exception  is  more  apparent  than  real,  for 
the  Turk  has  been  mothered  for  centuries  from 
slaves  bought  from  Semite  or  Japhethan  stock. 
But  if  Ham  is  a  puzzle  we  shall  find  more  per- 
plexity as  we  go  further  back.  We  have  a  record 
of  a  peopling  of  the  earth  in  a  time  long  anterior 
to  that  of  Noah.  It  does  not  look  credible  that 
so  much  pains  would  be  taken  to  preserve  a  his- 
tory of  individuals  and  clans,  all  of  whom  and 
all  of  whose  progeny  was  swept  from  the  earth 
in  order  to  make  an  entire  new  beginning  with 
Noah.  On  the  face  of  the  matter  it  would  seem 
improbable  that  such  particulars  could  have  sur- 
vived through  the  Noachian  conditions.  The 
uselessness  of  such  particulars  is  apparent,  and 
the  useless  ought  not  to  survive  here  any  more 
than  elsewhere.     There  is  light  on  all  this  per- 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  217 

plexity  in  one  theory  of  the  nature  and  purpose 
of  this  ancient  record,  or  of  these  ancient  docu- 
ments, if  one  prefers  the  compilation  hypothesis 
of  origin. 

The  theory  may  be  briefly  stated  to  be  this: 
descent  in  time  Jrom  the  general  to  the  -partictc- 
lar.  If  one  will  work  by  that  principle  as  he 
reads  this  record  from  its  beginning  to  Abraham, 
he  will  find  much  will  become  luminous  which  is 
otherwise  dark.  We  begin  with  the  history  of 
man  generic.  He  goes  out  from  some  primal 
home  and  settles  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth. 
We  leave  this  broad  view  to  come  down  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  particular  tribes  raying  out 
from,  or  located  around  a  Mesopotamian  center. 
Then  we  dismiss  all  these  to  have  our  attention 
held  to  one  man  who  comes  from  Semitic  stock, 
and  to  the  fortunes  of  his  progeny.  On  this  view 
we  may  assume  the  history  of  Noah  and  his 
family  to  be  only  a  local  particularization  in  the 
general  field.  Its  horizon  scarcely  extended  be- 
yond the  Tigris  on  the  east, the  Caucasus  on  the 
north,  and  Arabia  and  the  Nile  valle}^  on  the 
south. 

In  support  of  this  method  of  explanation  is 
the  known  fact  that  the  children  of  Japheth  and 


218  HIS  TOR  r,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THE  TIC 

of  Shem,  wherever  they  went, found  the  ground 
occupied  before  them.  The  Aryans  and  the 
Semites  in  their  migrations  found  earlier  peoples 
emigrants,  like  themselves,  from  somewhere. 
This  is  further  supported  by  the  fact  that  the 
enumeration  of  peoples,  nations  and  tribes  does 
not  include  the  whole  family  as  it  was  known 
to  exist,  certainly  as  earl}^  as  the  days  of  Abra- 
ham. 

The  Negro,  the  Chinese  and  his  related  Mon- 
gol are  not  known  in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis. They  are  not  therein  provided  for, except  as 
offshoots  from  them  come  into  the  Mesopota^ 
mian  field  of  view  and  furnish  an  underlj'ing 
stratum  of  population  which  in  that  field  is  swept 
into  the  family  of  Ham.  There  is  nothing  for 
it  but  to  hold  that  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis 
is  not  exhaustive  of  the  human  problem.  It  is 
limited  in  its  scope.  It  is  correct  inside  its  limi- 
tations,certainlj', so  far  as  Semite  and  Aryan  are 
concerned.  But  it  cannot  be  stretched  to  cover 
humanity.  On  this  ground  the  history  antece- 
dent takes  on  usefulness  and  purpose.  We  get 
out  of  that,  just  what  archaeology  is  showing 
us  to  be  the  fact,  a  source  of  origin  for  all  the 
Turanian  or  allophylian  races  which  we  find  in- 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  215> 

habit  or  have  inhabited  the  earth.  This  old 
record  itself  then  throws  their  beginning  back 
of  the  origin  of  the  Semitic  and  Aryan  races. 
We  need  the  chapters  anteceding  the  tenth  to 
account  for  known  facts.  They  lay  a  foun- 
dation for  the  origin  of  races  known  to  be  omitted 
from  that  chapter.  They  furnish  a  ground  of 
support  for  the  hypothesis  toward  which  the 
sciences  are  tending,  that  the  Semitic  and 
Aryan  races  are  derivatives,  "sports" from  some 
older  stock. 

Minor  questions  of  criticism  will  find  adjust- 
ment as  they  may,  this  more  important  matter 
finding  settlement. 

We  have  found  in  the  tenth  chapter  individ- 
ual names  to  cover  tribe  life;  why  may  not  this 
mode  of  treatment  well  have  been  followed  in 
the  preceding  chapers  in  what  looks  like  a  list 
of  patriarchs  of  extreme  longevity?  As  conser- 
vative a  scholar  as  Professor  Green  of  Prince- 
ton adopts  this  view.  The  formula  of  interpre- 
tation is:  such  a  dynasty  lasted  so  many  hun- 
dred years,  when  such  a  man  appeared. 

This  is  simply  to  follow  the  light  afforded  by 
the  old  historians  in  their  treatment  of  the  dynas- 
ties of  Egypt. 


220  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

We  cannot  well  spare  even  a  difficulty  from 
this  old  record.  We  ma}^  be  sure  there  is  some- 
thing behind  it  which  we  cannot  afford  to  lose. 
If  we  take  Adam  as  a  synthesis  or  as  giving  a 
typical  experience,  questions  like  "Where  did 
Cain  get  his  wife,  or  with  whom  did  he  build  a 
city?"  will  be  answered  by  saying,  he  got  his 
wife  and  built  a  city  as  every  one  else  has, 
from  the  people  round  about  him.  Again, 
the  very  difficulties  of  the  old  record  are  full 
of  suggestions  which  we  cannot  well  spare. 

The  compilation  theory  of  the  origin  of  the 
chapters  in  Genesis,  introductory  to  the  bio- 
graphical history,  certainly  receives  confirmation 
from  the  setting  and  character  of  the  story,  in 
the  eleventh  chapter,  of  the  building  of  the 
tower  of  Babel  and  of  the  confusion  of  tongues. 
That  story  seems  an  insertion  not  necessarily 
connected  with  what  goes  before  or  what  follows. 
It  is  such  sort  of  story  as  would  be  likely  to 
come  into  existence  as  a  new  people  in  their 
migrations  stumbled  upon  some  old  abandoned 
ruin  testifying  to  the  existence  there  of  a  prior 
population.  Conquering  Semites  might  have 
received  it  from  subjugated  Turanians. 

The  trouble  in  the  case  is  the  locus  in  quo  of 


HISTOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THE  TIC  221 

place  and  time.  But  the  truth  of  the  story  is 
not  improbable.  Man  is  a  builder,and  a  builder 
under  the  influence  of  strange  notions.  It  is  not 
quite  so  eas}^  to  tell  what  primitive  men  would 
do,  nor  by  what  motives  they  would  be  influ- 
enced. Perhaps  you  can  narrow  the  matter  down 
by  saying  you  cannot  tell  what  motives  might 
run  in  the  head  of  one  man  who  happened  to  be  a 
ruler  over  the  rude  peoples  of  early  days.  There 
is  no  reason  why  he  should  not  try  to  build  an 
Eiffel  Tower  as  well  as  a  Frenchman.  Use  and 
wont  are  powerful  with  barbarians.  Because 
one  generation  worked  on  a  tower  would  have 
been  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  next  to  continue 
the  work.  The  philosophy  beneath  this  story 
is  certainly  good  enough  to  make  it  probable  fact. 
Confusion  of  tongues  would  tend  to  dispersion 
and  dispersion  would  tend  to  confusion  of 
tongues.  Either  as  cause  would  produce  the 
other,  aud  the  effect  would  double  back  and  re- 
produce the  cause.  The  philologists  have  in- 
vented no  better  theory  of  the  origin  of  language 
than  this  Babel  story.  In  fact  philology  has  no 
other  theory  than  that  embodied  in  this  story. 
Necessity  compels  men  to  depart  out  of  the  coun- 
tries to  which  the}^  gravitate  under  the  gregari- 


222  HIS  TOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THE  TIC 

ous  propensity  where  they  would  speak  one  lan- 
guage. 

As  they  go  forth  they  meet  with  different  ex- 
periences, and  out  of  such  variety  of  experience 
must  come  variety  of  language.  The  experience 
of  men  in  valleys  will  call  for  different  words 
from  that  of  men  in  mountain  countries.  Differ- 
ent horizons  will  provoke  different  thoughts  and 
consequent  different  expressions,  and  here  you 
have  the  beginnings  of  dialects  and  languages. 
The  phenomena  of  the  growth  of  provincialisms 
upon  which  we  ourselves  can  look  is  a  reflec- 
tion of  a  process  which  must  have  worked  to 
rapid  results  and  results  of  great  magnitude 
with  primitive  migrating  man.  The  story  of  the 
confusion  of  tongues,  then,  is  not  a  wild  inven- 
tion of  the  fancy  of  untutored  man;  it  is  a  syn- 
thesis which  holds  within  itself  a  credible  mode 
of  origin  of  every  dialect  of  every  language 
spoken  by  man. 

The  fact  of  the  diversification  of  the  tongues 
of  all  stocks,  Turanian,  Semitic,  Aryan,  is  a  fact 
not  to  be  disputed,  and  the  further  fact  that  that 
variance  has  come,  in  the  main,  from  dispersion 
is  equally  indisputable.  The  Babel  story  may 
have  had  only  a  local    application    in    its  incep- 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  223 

tion.      But  even  so,  it  is  a  type  story  that  can  be 
laid  down  over  universal  human  experience. 

Even  the  dramatic  elements  of  the  local  story 
might  have  had  foundation  in  fact.  Men  might 
well  have  begun  a  tower  on  which  generations 
spent  their  united  force,  but  in  which  they 
finally  ceased  to  have  a  common  interest  be- 
cause, through  their  dispersion,  they  ceased  to 
have  upon  them  the  influence  of  the  unifying 
power  of  a  common  tongue. 

The  sovereign  question  to  be  kept  in  view  in 
our  treatment  of  this  old  record  is:  What  did  the 
writers  thereof  mean,  what  ground  did  they  in- 
tend  to  cover,  what  was  the  -point  0/  view  from 
which  they  drew  up  or  compiled  their  history, 
what,  if  any,  were  the  limitations  incident  to 
their  work?  The  Babel  story  is  on  its  face 
local,  of  limited  application.  We  have  found 
the  location  of  the  sons  of  Japheth,  Ham  and 
Shem  to  be  true  for  a  Mesopotamian  center, 
but  that  the  record  is  limited  to  an  outlook  from 
that  center.  It  does  not  exhaust  the  problem  of 
humanity.  It  falls  far  short  of  that.  The 
chronicles  in  the  antecedent  chapters  imply  as 
much. 

Now,  in  coming  to  the  treatment  of  the  flood 


224  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

we  have  an*  induction  from  the  old  record  itself 
which  raises  a  presumption  not  easily  to  be  set 
aside,  gives  it  -prima  Jacie  standing,  that  in  that 
event  we  are  dealing  with  an  operation  of  nature 
limited  and  local.  We  all  give  description  in 
universal  terms  of  what  passes  beyond  the  bounds 
of  our  knowledge  and  experience.  The  tale  of 
the  flood  is  probably  but  a  reminiscence  of  the 
fortunes  of  a  few  individuals.  Even  so  it  may 
be  a  type  of  human  experience  of  very  wide 
range,  as  we  have  found  the  Babel  story  to  in- 
dicate forces  operant  throughout  humanity. 

We  ma}'  say  at  once:  Given  the  glacial  epoch 
and  man  contemporary  with  any  of  its  condi- 
tions, at  the  beginning,  middle  or  at  its  close, 
and  the  story  of  Noah  must  come.  But  we  shall 
have  to  give  the  glacial  epoch,  and  that  too  not 
only  with  floods  resulting  from  the  melting  of 
the  ice,  but  with  submergence  of  ice-covered 
and  adjacent  lands. 

The  Lebanon  range  was  glaciated  and  the 
Jordan  valley  shows  its  raised  beaches.  Given 
that  fact  and  what  must  have  been  the  conditions 
at  the  head  waters  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates? 
With  the  hills  and  mountains  of  Armenia  glaci- 
ated, and  subsidences  as  in    other  cases  of  deep 


HISTORY,  TRIBAL  Af^D  SYNTHETIC  225 

and  protracted  glaciation,  it  is  incredible  that 
there  should  not  have  been  floods  in  Mesopo- 
tamia. 

I  do  not  know  the  geology  of  that  region,  but 
I  will  risk  the  prediction  that  it  is  covered  with 
till  (loess)  deposits  from  glacial  flood  washings. 
Floods  came  and  went  with  the  changes  of 
climate  again  and  again.  Now,  if  man  was 
contemporary  with  such  events  what  is  there 
incredible  about  the  Noah  story?  Evidence  of 
a  character  not  easily  brushed  away  is  accumu- 
lating that  man  was  distributed  nearly  all  over 
the  globe  in  the  later  periods  of  the  glacial 
epoch — the  time  of  its  floods. 

It  would  be  marvelous  if  men  could  go  through 
such  an  extraordinary  experience  and  that  of  it 
there  should  not  some  tradition  survive.  Flood 
traditions  have  survived  along  a  long  line.  The 
traditions  simply  fit  the  facts.  No  matter  about 
particulars,  any  one  of  them  encloses  the  un- 
questionable truth  that  in  its  early  history  the 
race  of  man   encountered   extraordinary  floods. 

The  ark  has  had  its  ridicule.  But  man  is  a 
builder  according  to  necessity  or  dominant  idea. 
With  tides  creeping  inland  under  subsidences 
toward  a  glacier  front,  man    would   be  likely  to 


226  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

do  something  extraordinary.  The  ark  is  not  as 
incredible  a  structure  as  the  pyramids,  not  more 
incredible  than  the  Swiss  lake  dwellings. 

If  "forty  centuries"  had  not  "looked  down" 
from  the  pyramids  before  the  very  eye  of  his- 
tory, we  should  sa}%  if  the  tale  of  their  construc- 
tion came  to  us  for  the  first  time  now,  that  it 
might  pass  as  a  story  of  fairy  land  but  it  could 
not  find  credence  on  this  solid  earth.  Mankind 
is  too  matter  of  fact  to  put  so  much  effort  on  a 
chimera.  Thoreau  is  not  far  from  right  when 
he  says:  "The  most  wonderful  thing  about  the 
pyramids  is,  that  so  many  people  could  be  found 
who  would  work  for  an  ambitious  booby  whom 
it  would  have  been  better  to  drown  in  the  Nile 
and  then  give  his  body  to  the  dogs."  It  is  in- 
credible that  one  man  could  have,  as  Herodotus 
says,  "worked  up"  one  hundred  thousand  men 
every  three  months  for  ten  years  to  build  a 
pyramid,  yet  the  pyramid  is  there,  and  there 
must  have  been  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
men  "worked  up"  in  order  for  it  to  be.  Noah's 
ark  for  a  fairly  conceivable  exigency  was  child's 
play  to  the  pyramid  of  Cheops.  Not  only  the 
plains  of  Shinar  but  the  whole  surface  of  the 
globe  is  dotted   over   with    towers  and  mounds. 


HIS  TOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THE  TIC  227 

the  story  of  whose  structure  has  no  such  sup- 
port in  natural  exigency  as  that  of  the  ark  of 
Noah.  You  cannot  tell  what  men  will  do.  The 
wit  of  man  is  sometimes  surprisingly  alert  to 
detect  impending  calamity,  and  sometimes  pro- 
vides for  it. 

In  Bret  Harte's  story  of  "The  Luck  of  Roar- 
ing Camp,"  though  the  valley  in  which  the  camp 
was  situated  abounded  in  trees,  a  miner  perceived 
that  it  had  been  formerly  torn  to  pieces  by  floods, 
and  predicted  that  they  might  occur  again. 
They  did  occur,  with  terrible  disaster.  Had  the 
miners  been  impressed  with  the  probability  of  an 
immediate  calamity  and  calked  the  bottom  and 
the  sides  of  their  cabin,  they  would  have  proba- 
bly executed  Noah's  problem  under  conditions 
somewhat  similar  to  his.  But  Roaring  Camp 
was  not  a  very  godly  place  and  the  floods  came 
and  carried  them  all  away.  There  were  doubt- 
less many  Roaring  Camps  in  Noah's  vicinity. 
But  his  righteousness  and  consequently  his  wit 
never  forsook  him.  To  apprehend  disaster  with 
him  was  to  provide  for  it. 

A  good  many  things  come  together  on  this 
story  and  confirm  it.  What  is  this  promise  of 
God  to  the  righteous:  "No  evil  shall  befall  thee. 


228  HIS  TOR  Y,  TRIBAL  AND  S  YN  THETIC 

neither  shall  any  plague  come  nigh  thy  dwell- 
ing"? It  is  but  one  aspect  of  the  law  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest.  Noah  was  righteous  and 
was  saved.  The  rest  of  the  world  about  him 
was  desperately  wicked  and  went  beneath  the 
waters  of  the  flood.  You  might  argue  that  this 
would  be  so  from  the  known  operation  of  the 
laws  of  righteousness  ,and  sin.  Righteousness 
teaches  habits  of  circumspection.  The  wicked 
are  always,  or  as  a  rule,  improvident.  The 
Saviour  has  given  a  touch  of  description  which 
reveals  the  moral  carelessness  and  heedlessness 
which  exposed  itself  in  open  recklessness  to 
any  fate  that  might  impend:  "They  were  eating 
and  drinking,  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage, 
until  the  day  that  Noah  entered  into  the  ark,  and 
thev  knew  not  until  the  flood  came  and  took 
them  all  away."  There  are  moral  probabilities 
of  great  strength  which  you  maj^  also  give  in 
evidence.  The  probabilities  are  that  under 
Noah's  conditions  in  nature  the  man  was  a  fool 
who  did  not  build  an  ark,  and  that  his  folly 
arose,  just  as  the  Bible  says,  from  the  improvi- 
dence of  his  wickedness. 

I    should    be    perfectly  willing   to  take  even 
lower   ground    than    this   concerning   the  flood 


HISTORY,    TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  229 

storj'.  Perhaps  it  is  not  a  reminiscence,  but 
only  an  inference.  Even  so,  it  would  carry  its 
body  of  probability  with  it. 

We  do  not  do  justice  to  the  science  of  the 
early  days.  Men  were  observers  of  nature  in 
that  day,  probably  closer  observers  than  they 
are  now,  because  they  lived  more  in  open  na- 
ture. The  native  Australian  is  put  by  us  very 
low  in  the  scale  of  humanity.  Yet  civilization 
employs  him  as  a  detective  of  criminals  in  the 
wilds  of  Australia.  Once  on  a  track  in  the  open 
country, he  is  Nemesis  itself.  The  sight  follows 
the  displacement  of  a  blade  of  grass, or  the  dis- 
turbed position  of  a  grain  of  gravel, with  the  in- 
fallibility of  the  scent  of  a  hound. 

Sometimes  sight  and  mind  corresponded  in 
early  days.  Observation  is  not  a  recent  science, 
nor  deduction  therefrom  a  modern  art.  The 
Chaldees  worked  out  the  essential  elements  of 
astronom^^  We  speak  of  the  Copernican  sys- 
tem, but  Pj'thagoras  taught  that  system  in  the 
sixth  century  B.  C.  Geology  is  a  science  of  the 
nineteenth  century  surel}^  Its  main  facts  were 
observed  and  correct  inferences  drawn  from 
them  in  the  sixth  century  B.  C.  b}^  Zenophanes. 
Man  has  always  been    a   digger  in  the  ground. 


230  HISTORY,  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC 

Suppose  that  far  inland  he  exhumed  the  bones 
of  a  whale,  or  a  human  skull  rolled  down  at  his 
feet,  he  could  infer  in  the  early  days  as  well  as 
now.  The  flood  story  in  the  main  as  we  have 
it  would  be  an  inevitable  inference.  Do  not  be 
so  sure  about  primitive  men  being  "childlike 
and  bland.'' 

Some  heads  were  clear  in  the  earl}'  days  and 
wrought  to  just  conclusions  from  keen  observa- 
tions. In  the  story  of  the  flood  we  may  have 
the  scientific  inferences  of  an  observer  of  nature 
as  sharp  of  sight  and  strong  of  thought  as  Ze- 
nophanes,  Pythagoras  and  the  old  Chaldees. 

One  final  word  as  to  attitude  of  spirit  in  treat- 
ing this  old  record.  There  is  nothing  about  it 
that  we  can  afford  to  drop.  There  is  not  a  line 
of  it  that  is  not  of  inestimable  value  for  scholar- 
ship if  not  for  religion.  Tales  that  look  ver}^ 
incredible  to  ignorance  may  become  luminous 
with  truth  to  wisdom.  If  anything  remains  un- 
solved it  will  become  us  before  it  reverently  to 
wait. 

In  a  cave  in  Perigord,  in  Southern  France,  a 
bit  of  ivory  was  found  on  which  was  a  sketch  of 
a  hairy  elephant.  Now,  suppose  the  workman 
who  unearthed  it,  after  he  had  brushed  the  soil 


HISTORY.  TRIBAL  AND  SYNTHETIC  231 

from  its  surface,  had  said:  "What  nonsense! 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  hairy  elephant. 
This  is  simply  a  fancy  sketch,  as  of  a  griffin  or 
dragon,  an  old  wives'  fable,  made  to  impose 
upon  the  imagination  of  children.  I'll  smash  it 
here  with  my  pick  upon  this  stone."  It  takes 
away  one's  breath  to  think  how,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  such  thought,  one  of  the  most  precious 
bits  of  testimony  to  the  animal  life  contemporary 
with  early  man  might  have  been  destroyed. 

And  yet  we  have  precisely  that  state  of  feel- 
ing toward  these  old  fossils  of  human  history, 
and  it  plumes  itself  on  its  wisdom  and  calls  itself 
criticism.  A  man  who  would  treat  these  old 
records  with  umbrage  or  levity  would  blow  up 
a  cabinet  of  fossils  because  it  contains  much  that 
is  inexplicable  and  does  not  read  like  a  book. 


X. 

PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY. 

The  impression  I  desire  to  produce  is, that  in 
the  Bible  we  have  a  trustworthy  history  so  far 
as  it  attempts  to  portray  the  lives  of  individuals 
or  to  set  forth  the  origin  and  movements  of  races. 
In  the  two  discussions  alread}^  had,  I  hope  some 
contribution  has  been  made  to  such  impression. 
But  there  is  a  history  of  man  and  his  surround- 
ings, which  lies  back  of  anything  that  we  have 
yet  touched,  for  which  I  can  find  no  better  term 
than  philosophic  history;  Max  Mueller  says, 
"constructive."  It  is  a  history  of  which  we 
have  no  record  and  little  or  no  tradition.  If  we 
find  our  way  into  and  over  it  we  shall  have  to 
execute  the  feat  by  the  light  of  philosophy.  I 
wish  to  carry  the  conviction  that  we  have  as  re- 
liable philosophical  history  in  the  Bible  as  we 
have  pertaining  to  race  or  biographical.  I  think 
what  lies  behind  that  which  we  have  already 
considered,  i  e.,  what  in  the  Scriptures  antedates 

232 


PHII.OSOPHICAL  HISTORY  233 

the  record  of  the  division  of  man  into  races,  is 
of  philosophical  cast,  was  composed  as  philoso- 
phy, and  is  to  be  interpreted  by  philosophy.  I 
am  far  from  denying  a  basis  of  fact,  but  the 
facts  are  mere  guide-posts  for  the  reason  as  it, 
from  all  that  is  known,  constructs  a  way  of  ra- 
tional judgment  back  over  the  unknown. 

Of  course  you  will  pass  by  insensible  grada- 
tions from  what  I  have  termed  synthetic  to 
philosophical  history.  Suppose  a  man  to  be 
writing  human  history  from  a  theistic  point  of 
view.  He  will  give  you  an  account  of  God- 
led  men  as  he  traces  a  line  along  the  open  path 
of  history.  Back  of  that  he  will  show  you  races 
under  divine  appointment  filing  out  from  some 
center  of  common  origin  to  take  up  their  places 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  If  these  speciall}^  de- 
scribed races  do  not  cover  the  whole  problem  of 
humanity,  that  fact  will  be  indicated.  But  if 
that  makes  the  history  of  man  an  affair  too  wide 
and  too  ancient  to  be  traced  out  in  detail,  we 
should  expect  to  find  some  comprehensive 
synthesis,  some  philosophical  summary  that  will 
give  the  essential  features  of  a  history  whose 
complications  bewilder — whose  facts  are  lost. 
You  find  just  such  a  system  of  philosophy  in  the 


234  PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY 

earlier  chapters  of  Genesis.  Going  back  in  his- 
tory as  far  as  one  can,  there  is  man,  and  before 
him  was  man  of  whom  there  is  no  history. 
What  were  the  fortunes  of  that  primitive  man? 
How  came  he  here?  That  is  one  of  the  most 
entrancingly  interesting  of  questions.  This  pre- 
historic man — who  was  he?  Where  did  he  come 
from?  how  did  he  live?  what  tools  did  he  use? 
what  were  his  social  customs  and  habits?  what 
was  the  range  of  his  thought? 

Every  cave  is  searched,  every  burial  mound 
opened,  upon  every  chipped  flint  inquisition  is 
made,  to  find  some  answer  or  some  partial  an- 
swer to  such  questions.  Our  newspapers  and 
periodicals  of  all  sorts  are  full  of  facts  or  specu- 
lations bearing  upon  the  problems  connected  with 
the  life  of  this  primitive, prehistoric  man.  Now, 
the  writer  of  Genesis  knew  of  this  supreme  prob- 
lem as  well  as  the  last  writer  in  our  scientific 
periodicals,  and  the  writer  in  Genesis  where 
fact  failed  put  in  philosophy  to  round  out  the 
problem  to  comprehension  as  well  as  could  be 
done  or  as  fully  as  necessary  to  suit  the  purposes 
of  his  composition.  Let  us  see  what  are  some 
of  these  philosophic  conclusions.  The  work 
herein  cannot  be  an  exhaustive  commentary.   It 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY  235 

can  only  indicate  a  mode  of  treatment  which 
can  be  applied  to  the  various  topics  sprung  by 
the  record. 

One  of  these  subjects  is  the  unity  of  the  race. 
Back  of  the  total  historic  problem  of  man  stands 
Eden, as  back  of  the  Mesopotamian  center  is  the 
ark  of  Noah.  Out  from  some  common  center 
came  man,  as  out  from  some  catastrophe  cutting 
off  others  from  that  center  came  the  progenitors 
of  the  tribes  and  peoples  with  whom  a  Chaldean 
would  come  in  contact.  Is  not  the  record  evi- 
dently drawn  up  on  such  a  basis?  Can  we  to- 
day do  any  better  with  the  problems  raised? 
The  question  of  inspiration  I  leave  untouched. 
That  element  ma}^  be  found  in  the  intent  and 
purpose  of  a  composition  intensely  human,  radi- 
cally philosophic. 

Let  Adam  stand  for  man — for  man  generic. 
If  you  will  read  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis 
carefully  you  will  conclude  that  you  are  dealing 
with  a  philosophic  problem  rather  than  with  the 
fortunes  of  an  individual.  It  is  philosophy  and 
not  biography  that  is  before  you.  That  con- 
clusion will  grow  on  reflection.  Of  course  the 
question  comes,  is  the  philosophy  trustworthy? 
Well,  who  disputes  the  unity  of  the  race?     The 


2a«  PHILOSOPHIC/1L  HISTORY 

extremest  doctrine  of  evolution  will  give  man  as 
one  species.  That  doctrine  leads  back  straight 
to  the  position  of  the  unity  of  origin  of  man.  It 
conceives  the  various  races  as  differentiated  from 
a  common  ancestry  by  the  different  environment 
with  which  they  came  in  contact,  just  as  their 
tongues  were  confounded  or  differentiated  by 
their  differing  experiences. 

The  doctrine  of  evolution  inherently  involves 
the  original  unity  of  the  race.  So  that  the  last 
theory  of  science  comes  to  the  same  ground 
upon  which  to  rest  as  the  first  philosophy  of  re- 
ligion. We  like  to  get  into  a  philosophy  some- 
times and  see  some  of  the  elements  which  compel 
it  to  take  the  form  it  wears.  I  think  we  can 
discern  one  or  two  such  formative  principles 
operative  in  the  case  before  us.  Whoever  had 
worked  out  the  philological  problem  which  we 
have  found  solved  for  us,  could  not  have  failed 
to  carry  up  to  the  elder  problem  inferences  to 
which  his  investigations  led  him  in  the  later 
problem. 

There  was  an  earlier  unity  than  the  unity 
which  settled  on  Noah, as  that  on  the  face  of  the 
record  seems  not  exhaustive.  Such  philosophical 
inference  I  think  we  may  say  would  be  natural. 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY  237 

The  unity  of  the  race  of  man  would  follow  from 
the  religious  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God.  Given 
in  thought  one  God  and  man  his  son,  and  mind 
will  inevitably  gravitate  to  the  view  of  the  uni- 
tary origin  of  man. 

The  moment  that  monotheism  is  planted,  that 
moment  some  Paul  will  say:  "God  hath  made 
of  one  all  nations  of  men, to  dwell  on  all  the  face 
of  the  earth,"  and  that  is  the  philosophy  of  the 
first  chapters  of  Genesis.  We  are  not  very  soon 
to  remove  that  philosophy  from  its  base.  It 
stands  and  it  will  stand. 

But  there  is  another  problem  on  which  philo- 
sophic judgment  is  passed,  and  it  is  the  inner 
one  of  religion.  This  is  it— the  moral  history 
of  man,  what  has  it  been?  The  answer  to  that 
is  the  story  of  Paradise  and  ''the  fall."  Our 
theology  has  made  such  havoc  with  that  story 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  for  one,  who  tries 
resolutely  to  set  aside  what  theology  has  taught 
and  to  read  the  story  anew  for  himself,  to  divest 
himself  of  the  profound  misunderstandings  which 
have  been  bred  into  the  fiber  of  his  mind.  Then, 
on  the  other  hand,  destructives  with  malign  in- 
tent have  insisted  on  treating  an  allegory  or 
parable  as  meant  for  historic  fact,  and  an  im. 
press  has  been  left  on  us  from  that  quarter. 


238  PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY 

Would  you  deny  the  truth  of  the  parable  of 
the  prodigal  son?  Neither  would  I  the  truth  of 
the  Eden  story  of  the  fall  of  man.  Indeed,  do 
they  not  substantially  cover  the  same  ground? 
In  fact,  what  is  the  story  of  the  fall  but  the  story 
of  a  prodigal  son?  The  writer  of  Genesis  found 
certain  moral  facts  in  existence  round  about  him. 
He  found  "the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil"  growing  at  every  man's  right  hand. 
Everybody  knew  that  tree.  No  one  has  de- 
scribed it  better  than  the  heathen  poet  Ovid: 

"I  know  the  right,  approve  it  too; 

I  know  the  wrong  and  still  the   wrong  pursue." 

The  question  with  the  writer  of  Genesis  is, 
how  far  back  can  you  push  knowledge  of  that 
sort?  and  his  answer  is,  just  as  far  as  you  can 
push  human  experience.  I  have  been  tempted 
and  I  have  fallen.  Men  about  me  have  been 
tempted  and  fallen.  Where  did  this  experience 
begin?  The  answer  is,  it  began  with  man. 
Now  put  your  philosophy  on  the  matter.  Is  not 
that  a  correct  answer?  Who  is  in  position  to 
dispute  its  correctness?  If  the  first  man  did  not 
fall,  then  he  was  superhuman  and  was  not  the 
first  man.  "  Errare  est  hiimanum" — "  It  is  hum  an 
to  err."     The  story  of  the  Eden    fall   is  in  that 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY  239 

Latin  proverb;  for   it    is    a  truth  respecting  the 
action  of  the  moral  as  well  as  of  the  intellectual 

nature. 

Man  sins  as  well  as  makes  mistakes.  The 
Eden  story  is  a  correct  portraiture  of  the  moral 
experience  of  all  men  for  all  time,  true  for  the 
first  man  and  true  for  the  last.  If  you  take  the 
theory  of  the  animal  origin  of  man,  then  the 
first  man  was  the  one  who  first  had  the  Edenic 
moral  experience.  All  before  that  was  animal, 
all  after  that  was  man.  We  hear  the  doctrine 
of  the  fall  of  man  denied.  It  is  denied  in  quar- 
ters where  we  should  expect  better  philosophy. 
What  is  a  moral  fall?  A  good  statement  of  it  is 
just  exactly  that  which  we  have  quoted  from 
Ovid: 

''To  know  the  right,  approve  it  too; 

To  know  the  wrong  and  still  the  wrong  pursue." 

So  to  know  and  so  to  do  is  to  eat  forbidden 
fruit— to  eat  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil.  Of  that  fruit  the  first 
man  ate.  Of  that  fruit  we  all  have  eaten.  To 
eat  it  banished  us  from  Eden;  why  should  it  not 
have  had  the  same  effect  with  primitive  man? 
Every  man  has  the  means  of  verification  of  that 
Eden  story  within  himself.     That  man  has  been 


240  PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY 

continually  rising — continually  progressing, even 
morally,  furnishes  no  reason  why  we  should 
den}^  that  man  fell  and  that  man  is  fallen.  The 
two  truths  may  exist  together — have  existed  to- 
gether— do  exist  together. 

However  rudimentary  man  might  have  been 
at  first  in  his  moral  capacity,  he  was  not  true  to 
that  rudimentary  moral  nature. 

And  however  clear  in  moral  perception  man 
may  have  become,  he  has  not  been  true  to  the 
clearness  of  his  perception.  That  makes  a  fall 
along  the  whole  line.  Conduct  has  fallen  below 
moral  knowledge.  That  is  undeniable.  I  should, 
not  expect  a  man  to  find  a  great  following  who 
should  deny  it.  Because  theology  has  made  a 
botch  in  its  treatment  of  this  matter,  making 
dark  and  incomprehensible  what  is  luminous, 
deducing  effects  and  conditions  which  never 
had  being,  that  is  no  reason  why  the  essential 
fact  of  the  fall  of  man  should  be  denied.  Cor- 
rect the  theology,  but  do  not  blur  the  fact — a 
fact  standing  in  universal  consciousness.  It  is 
utterly  untrue  that 

"In  Adam's  fall, 
We  sinned  all." 

But    it    is    true    that    Adam   sinned     and     that 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY  241 

we  have  all  sinned  "after  the  similitude  of 
Adam's  transgression."  It  is  not  true  that  there 
is  any  such  thing  as  original  sin  in  the  theologic 
sense  of  a  sin  committed  by  Adam  for  which  we 
are  guilty, or  the  guilt  of  which  is  imputed  to  us. 
But  it  is  true  that  there  is  no  sin  which  is  not 
original  in  the  sense  pointed  out  by  Coleridge — 
there  is  no  sin  which  is  not  original  with  the 
individual  sinner — as  original  as  Adam's  sin. 
It  is  not  true  that  there  is  any  corruption  in  us 
derived  from  Adam's  sin  for  which  we  are 
under  condemnation.  It  is  true  that  there  are 
tendencies  to  sin  which  we  have  derived  from 
the  whole  line  of  our  ancestry  back  to  Adam. 

But  the  correct  moral  estimate  of  these  ten- 
dencies is  not  that  they  are  guilt,  but  that  they 
are  temptations  only,  that  no  guilt  attaches  till 
we  have  chosen  to  follow  the  temptation.  The 
sin  of  all  mankind  may  have  wrought  depravity 
in  every  nature  derived  from  human  stock.  But 
there  is  no  guilt  till  the  depravity  is  assented  tOo 
You  may  say  that  the  power  of  this  depravity 
has  been  accumulating  till  it  has  become  a  terri-* 
ble  force  in  the  course  of  the  ages.  Yes,  but 
bear  in  mind  that  it  has  been  balanced  by  a 
progressive  development  of    the    moral  nature. 


242  PHILOSOPHICAL   HISTORY 

The  latter  force  offsets  the  other — perhaps  more 
than  offsets  the  other.  It  is  a  question  whether 
bad  moral  heredity  is  transmitted  with  the 
force  which  accompanies  the  good,  whether  na- 
ture is  not  predominantly  benign,  whether  much 
charged  to  malign  heredity  should  not  go  to  the 
account  of  environment  and  habit. 

We  probably  have  as  fair  a  trial  as  Adam  or 
primitive  man,  and  he  with  his  rudimentary 
moral  nature  had  no  better  chance  than  we,  and 
probably  no  worse.  But  it  is  not  my  purpose 
to  make  a  theological  argument.  All  I  make 
any  detour  in  that  direction  for  is  to  take  away 
the  clouds  and  darkness  that  have  been  grouped 
about  the  Eden  story,  so  that  without  mental 
bonds  and  clamps  and  prejudice  we  may  read 
that  story  in  its  own  original  native  simplicity, 
truth  and  light. 

And  now,  suppose  some  one  meets  you  and 
imparts  to  you  the  confidential  information  that 
the  Eden  story  is  "  a  fable  to  be  dropped  as  a  tad- 
pole loses  its  tail,"  could  you  not  find  philosoph}^ 
enough  to  say  that  what  is  true  of  all  must  be 
true  of  any,  and  so  let  your  brilliant  informer 
go  his  stupid  way?  But  now,  to  put  a  summary 
briefly,   if  the   experiences    in    the   Eden    story 


PHILOSOPHICAL   HISTORY  243 

are  philosophical  the  man  is  philosophical — the 
whole  matter  is  philosophical — was  meant  for 
philosophy.  Let  us  read  and  interpret  the  old 
record  as  it  was  meant.  That  the  experiences 
are  philosophical,  God's  walking  in  the  garden 
in  the  cool  of  the  day  ought  to  be  sufficient 
proof.  That  is  true  taken  as  ethical  psychology, 
otherwise  riot. 

But  there  is  a  more  ultimate  reach  to  philo- 
sophical history  yet,  and  some  authorjn  Genesis 
has  pushed  his  venturesome  wa}^  yet  further 
back.  What  were  the  fortunes  and  experiences 
of  primitive  man?  That  is  a  great  question. 
But  what  preceded  man?  That  is  a  great  ques- 
tion, yet  more  ultimate.  That  question  is  boldly 
faced  and  a  plain  answer  given  it  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis.  I  have  never  seen  an  ex- 
position of  that  first  chapter  satisfactory  to  my- 
self. I  do  not  expect  io  give  one  that  will  satisfy 
others,  for  I  have  my  unsolved  problems.  But 
I  have  found  more  satisfaction  in  treating  that 
chapter  as  philosophic  history  than  from  any 
other  mode  of  interpretation.  Two  elements 
hover  over  that  composition  and  compel  its  pres- 
ent form — God  and  man — and  the  relations  of 
religion  subsisting  between  them. 


244  PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY 

First  and  foremost  in  the  thought  of  the  writer 
is  God.  Then  next  comes  man  made  in  the  im- 
age of  God.  The  world  and  all  it  contains  is 
an  abode  fitted  up  for  the  use  and  welfare  of  man. 

I  do  not  think  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  was 
ever  intended  to  set  forth  a  scientific  order  of 
thought  according  to  modern  conceptions.  It 
was  intended  to  set  forth  a  religious  order  of 
thought,  or  a  philosophical  order  of  thought  as 
that  would  be  determined  by  religion.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  can  make  this  distinction  very  plain, 
but  I  think  it  will  grow  plain.  It  is  said  that 
there  is  a  remarkable  correspondence  between 
the  order  of  creation  or  of  evolution  set  forth  in 
Genesis,  and  the  teachings  of  science.  But  I 
think  that  correspondence  was  worked  out  from 
a  religious  base  rather  than  from  one  scientific. 
For  instance, science  shows  that  the  evolution  of 
man  was  a  very  late  affair,  and  so  does  Gene- 
sis. But  the  author  of  Genesis  drew  his  infer- 
ence out  of  religion, drew  it  rather  from  the  base 
of  his  inner  consciousness,  while  the  scientist 
draws  his  the  rather  from  objective  observations 
upon  nature. 

Let  us  see  how  the  Genesis  inference  might 
come.     Man   as  a  moral  being  capable  of  com- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY  ^5 

munication  with  God  by  his  moral  nature  is  the 
highest  creature   in   the    order   of  being  on  this 
earth.      It  is  a  conclusion  of  religion,  and  I  beg 
leave  to  say  a  correct   one,   that   all   things   are 
subservient  to  the  interests  of  this  moral  being, 
all  things  were  made  preparatory   for   his   com- 
ing and  for  his  use.     Take   the   attitude   of  the 
Psalmist.     Question:  "What  is  man   that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him?  or  the  son  of  man  that  thou 
visitesthim?"     Answer:  "Thou  hast  made  him 
a  little  lower  than  the  angels  and  hast    crowned 
him  with   glory   and    honor.   Thou   madest  him 
to  have  dominion  over  the  works   of  thy  hands; 
thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet;  all  sheep 
and  oxen,  yea,  and    the   beasts  of  the  field;  the 
fowl  of  the  air    and    the    fish    of    the    sea;  and 
whatsoever   passeth   through    the   paths   of    the 
seas."  The  philosophy  of  that  Psalm  is  substan- 
tially parallel  with   the   philosophy    of   the    first 
chapter  of  Genesis.   Indeed, much  of  the  phrase- 
ology is  common  to  the  two  writings.     The  re- 
ligious feeling  embodied   in   that  Psalm    would 
compel  an  account  of  creation  to  take  the   form 
presented  in  Genesis.   It  would   compel  the  ap- 
pearance of  man  to  be  last  on  the  face  of  an  earth 
fitted  up  for  him  and  fitted  with  all  things  for  his 


246  PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY 

use.  You  know  that  poetry  has  proved  itself 
one  of  the  best  of  philosophic  interpreters  of  na- 
ture. If  Darwinism  is  true,  yet  Lucretius  sung 
it  two  thousand  years  before  Darwin  was  born. 
Why  may  not  ethics  or  morals  or  religion — all 
radically  one — be  as  good  an  interpreter  of  na- 
ture as  aesthetics?  It  seems  to  have  proved  itself 
so  in  this  case.  Let  us  give  speculative  thought 
a  little  room  in  this  matter.  Do  not  despise  that 
word  "speculation;"  there  may  be  help  in  it  as 
in  theory  or  hypothesis.  I  like  to  hold  to  the 
notion  of  the  Mosaic  origin  of  this  first  chapter 
of  Genesis — no  matter  where  the  other  docu- 
ments of  which  the  book  is  composed,  came 
from. 

It  contains  a  philosophy  which  no  one  was 
so  likely  as  Moses  to  put  at  the  head  of  the  re- 
ligion to  which  he  gave  order  and  law.  Moses 
had  a  philosophic  mind,  and  he  had  a  wonder- 
ful opportunity  to  exercise  it.  Mr.  Darwin  was 
about  fifty  years  of  age  when  he  published  his 
book  on  the  origin  of  species.  He  had  thought 
about  the  matter  and  worked  at  it  all  his  life  till 
that  time.  But  Moses  had  a  mind  as  alert  as 
Darwin's.  At  forty  years  of  age  he  was  driven 
into  the  wilderness, and  there  he  remained  till  he 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTOR Y  247 

was  eighty  years  of  age,  in  the  close  compan- 
ionship of  God  and  nature  in  his  capacity  of 
shepherd.  It  was  said  of  him  when  forty  years 
more  had  passed  over  him  that  his  eye  was  not 
dim  nor  his  natural  force  abated. 

Matthew  Arnold  held  a  free  lance,  hear  him: 

''What  bard, 
At  the  height  of  his  vision,  can  deem 
Of  God,  of  the  world,  of  the  soul, 
With  a  plainness  as  near, 
As  flashing  as  Moses  felt, 
When  he  lay  in  the  night  by  his  fiock 
On  the  star-lit  Arabian  waste; 
Can  arise  and  obe}' 
The  beck  of  the  spirit  like  him?" 

There  were  forty  years,  then,  of  such  a  man 
with  such  powers  and  with  such  religious  atti- 
tude of  mind  in  contact  with  nature. 

Out  of  such  circumstances,  or  of  some  man 
of  and  in  such  circumstances,  we  ought  to  ex- 
pect the  philosophy  of  this  first  chapter  of  Gen- 
esis to  come.  Give  credit  for  some  observation. 
He  lives  upon  his  flocks  and  herds;  they  live 
upon  plants.  There  is  the  order  of  the  intro- 
duction of  vegetable  and  animal  life  and  of  the 
life  of  man  before  him.  That  is  simple,  but  it 
is  all   there.     Other  conclusions   are   not  very 


248  PHILOSOPHICAL  HIS  TOR  Y 

remote,  certainly  not  that  the  beginning  is  chaos 
and  that  the  beginning  of  effort  is  toward  order 
in  matter. 

There  is  one  stumbling  block  which  I  think 
will  cease  to  be  a  rock  of  offense  when  you  ap- 
proach it  from  the  point  of  religious  philosoph}^ 
rather  than  from  that  of  bare  science.  I  refer 
to  the  astronomical  work  of  the  fourth  day. 

The  treatment  of  the  whole  subject  of  astron- 
omy must  have  been  determined  by  religious 
considerations.  The  author  was  not  balancing 
the  niceties  of  knowledge  actual  or  possible.  The 
religion  of  Egypt  would  have  begun  its  philo- 
sophic  history  of  creation  thus: 

"In  the  beginning  Osiris,  or  the  sun,  created 
all  things." 

In  Egypt  the  sun  was  God.  It  would  be 
necessary  to  enter  some  very  determined  protest 
against  that  idea.  The  tendency  among  the 
children  of  Israel  would  be  to  revert  to  the  wor- 
ship prevalent  in  Egypt.  Indeed, what  heathen 
nation  has  not  had  its  sun  worship?  Now  see 
how  the  author  of  Genesis  I.  managed  this  mat- 
ter: he  has  dethroned  ^he  sun  and  enthroned 
God;  he  has  exalted  man  by  making  the  sun, 
instead  of  man's   god,  man's  servant.   Probably 


PHIL  OSOPHICAL  HIS  TOR  Y  249 

the  greatest  step  ever  taken  in  the  emancipation 
of  man  from  superstition  was  the  very  degrada- 
tion of  the  sun  from  a  Divine  position  to  the  sub- 
ordinate position  in  which  he  is  placed  in  this 
chapter.  It  will  pay  us  to  have  before  our  minds 
the  whole  of  the  record. 

"And  God  said,  Let  there  be  lights  in  the  fir- 
mament of  heaven  to  divide  the  day  from  the 
night;  and  let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for  sea- 
sons, and  for  da3's,  and  years;  and  let  them  be 
for  'lights  in  the  firmament  of  heaven  to  give 
light  upon  the  earth  ;  and  it  was  so.  And  God 
made  two  great  lights;  the  greater  light  to  rule 
the  day,  and  the  lesser  light  to  rule  the  night; 
and  he  made  the  stars  also.  And  God  set  them 
in  the  firmament  of  heaven  to  give  light  upon 
the  earth;  and  to  rule  over  the  day  and  over 
the  night,  and  to  divide  the  light  from  the  dark- 
ness; and  God  saw  that  it  was  good." 

The  particularization  of  the  objects  in  view 
over  and  over  again  would  have  the  effect  to 
beat  into  the  minds  of  the  children  of  Israel  that 
the  heavenly  bodies  were  no  gods,  but  that  they 
were  humble  servants  of  themselves — the  pro- 
ducers for  them  of  seasons,  the  markers  of  time, 
lamps  to  light  the  day    and   the  night.     That  is 


250  PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTOR Y 

a  correct  assignment  of  the  functions  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  espe- 
cially when  it  is  directed  against  a  tendency  to 
deifv  these  bodies. 

Do  you  say  that  science  laughs  at  such  phi- 
losophy because  the  sun  is  so  much  greater  than 
the  earth  and  the  earth  is  a  mere  satellite  of  the 
sun?  Well, is  science  so  crude  of  soul  as  to  wor- 
ship the  huge  in  size  instead  of  the  complete  in 
process?  Mechanical  power  instead  of  spirit? 

To  religion  moral  beings  must  always  be  the 
center  of  the  universe.  To  ethics  and  philoso- 
phy the  universe  is  homocentric.  I  stood  by 
the  open  door  of  a  blast  furnace  with  my  friend 
by  my  side.  The  furnace  was  larger  than  my 
friend;  there  was  very  much  more  physical 
power  represented  in  the  processes  going  on  in 
the  furnace  than  there  was  in  the  body  of  my 
friend.  Had  my  friend  been  cast  .into  the  fur- 
nace the  heat  would  have  licked  him  up  in  a 
few  seconds  like  a  shaving. 

Yet  my  friend  held  a  very  much  higher  rank 
in  my  estimation  than  did  the  furnace.  In  fact, 
the  furnace  was  the  servant  of  m}^  friend.  This 
earth  bears  fourteen  hundred  millions  of  men 
highly  organized  physically,  finely  tuned  men- 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY  251 

tally.  I  shall  take  off  my  hat  to  them  and  not 
to  the  huge  furnace  that  heats  them.  They  are 
the  more  finished  product. 

God  must  have  the  feeling  that  we  have  in 
this  matter,  only  in  infinitely  greater  degree,  in 
tenderness  infinitely  sublimed.  That  is  the 
jihilosophy  of  religion.  The  author  of  Genesis 
caught  it  and  gave  it  setting  in  the  brief  though 
majestic  philosophic  outline  of  the  processes  of 
God  in  matter  and  nature  before  the  introduc- 
tion of  man  on  this  earth — gave  it  out  of  religion 
and  to  religion.  In  the  forum  of  religion  it  is  a 
just  and  true  account, and  will  remain  so — what- 
ever science  may  discover  or  prove — "till  the 
heavens  be  no  more." 

NOTE   I. 

Inasmuch  as  you  cannot  describe  everything 
all  at  once,  why  is  it  not  just  as  well  to  put  off 
to  a  fourth  place  in  the  order  of  description  work 
done  on  the  sun  and  stars  as  to  treat  that  matter 
in  any  other  place  in  a  cosmical  treatise? 

One  thing  is  certain — when  you  consider  the 
end  in  view  of  a  sun  or  planet  to  be,  ultimately, 
ability  to  support  life  upon  itselfj  and  to  be  the 
abode  of  moral  beings,  if  completion  is  six,  the 


252  PHILIOSOPHICAL  HISTORY 

earth  was  three  parts  out  of  six  nearer  to  com- 
pletion than  the  sun,  when  life  appeared.  In- 
deed, are  we  not  at  libertj^  to  say  scientifically 
the  earth  was  half  finished  before  work  on  the 
sun  had  advanced  as  far  as  it  had  gone  at  the 
close  of  the  earth's  first  day?  The  sun  may 
have  a  day  in  court,  but  he  has  hardly  had  one 
yet. 

With  the  fear  of  Sj^dnej'  Smith  before  my 
eyes,  I  would  not  speak  disrespectfully  of  the 
sun  or  the  equator.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  sun 
is  a  huge  waste-basket  into  which  everything 
has  been  tumbled  that  was  not  caught  and  fin- 
ished elsewhere.  Whether  the  sun  can  be  utilized 
in  itself  for  higher  purposes  is  guess-work.  But 
I  do  not  charge  this  speculation  up  to  the  author 
of  Genesis.  He  probably  knew  nothing  about 
it  and  would  not  have  cared  for  it  if  he  had.  It 
was  out  of  the  range  of  his  purpose.  Again,  I 
do  not  mean  to  play  the  role  of  a  harmonist.  I 
am  impressed  with  the  wisdom  of  the,  following 
extract  from  J.  Clerk  Maxwell:  "The  rate  of 
change  of  scientific  hypothesis  is  naturally  much 
more  rapid  than  that  of  Biblical  interpretations, 
so  that  if  an  interpretation  is  founded  on  such  a 
hypothesis   it   may  help   to  keep  the  hypothesis 


PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTORY  253 

above  ground  long  after  it   ought  to  be  buried 
and  forgotten. 

"  I  think  the  results  which  each  man  arrives  at 
in  his  attempts  to  harmonize  his  science  with 
his  Christianity  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as 
having  any  significance,  except  to  the  man 
himself,  and  to  him  only  for  a  time,  and  should 
not  receive  the  stamp  of  society.  For  it  is  the 
nature  of  science,  especially  of  those  branches  of 
science  which  are  spreading  into  unknown 
regions,  to  be  continually  changing." 

NOTE  II. 

I  do  not  want  to  be  understood  as  holding 
that  there  are  two  orders  of  truth  for  the  same 
facts,  one  religious  and  the  other  scientific,  and 
that  what  is  true  in  the  one  may  be  false  in  the 
other.  But  the  vision  may  subordinate  the  one 
department  to  the  other,  even  sinking  important 
truths  of  the  one  out  of  sight,  or  neglecting  their 
proper  order,  for  emphasis  of  a  purpose  imme- 
diately in  view  in  the  other.  It  would  be  strange 
if  this  were  not  done  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis.  The  scientific  view  was  certainly 
secondary  in  the  mind  of  the  author.  Yet  no 
scientist  would  treat   with    scorn   such  scientific 


254  PHILOSOPHICAL  HISTOR  Y 

ideas  as  chance  to  come  to  expression  in  a  docu- 
ment so  synthetic  in  execution  and  purpose. 
Both  science  and  religion  probabi}'  do  violence 
to  the  intent  of  the  author  in  holding  him  to 
such  sharpness  of  distinction  between  event  and 
event,  or  action  and  action,  definition  of  means 
and  modes,  as  is  customary  in  comment.  The 
further  light  that  is  to  break  out  of  God's  word 
will  doubtless  come,  not  from  strict  dramatic  or 
etymologic  treatment  of  the  text,  but  from  divin- 
ing the  philosophic  thought  lying  in  it.  It  will 
so  probably  come  nearer  interpreting  the  author. 
Criticism  now  falls  on  the  text.  The  author's 
thought  was  sweeping  over  an  infinite  system, 
and  he  ought  not  to  be  held  to  nicety  in  aeonic 
punctuation. 


XI. 

THE  STORY  OF  EDEN  AND  THE  PAR- 
ABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON. 

The  highest,  last,  and  best  form  of  religious 
instruction  is  contained  in  the  New  Testament. 
It  is  true  in  one  sense  that  having  the  New 
Testament  we  do  not  need  the  Old.  Paul  said 
of  the  Old  Testament,  that  it  was  "able  to  make 
wise  unto  salvation."  That  is  much  more  true 
of  the  New — even  of  the  writings  of  Paul  him- 
self. The  Gospels  are  a  better  guide  of  salvation 
than  the  Psalms.  Paul  is  a  better  teacher  of  the 
way  of  life  than  any  or  all  of  the  old  prophets. 
The  New  Testament  is  fruit  or  flower  on  the 
tree  of  religious  knowledge.  But  fruit  or  flower 
is  borne  on  stem  and  root,  and  one  would  .be  re- 
markably wanting  in  the  higher  and  better  ele- 
ments of  intellectual  life  who  should  pluck  fruit 
to  gratify  his  taste,  or  a  flower  to  delight  his 
eye,  and  take  no  notice  of  the  branch  or  stalk 
on  which  it  grew.   One's  knowledge  is  not  com- 

255 


256  THE  STORY  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

plete  respecting  a  flower  till  he  has  carried  his 
observations  from  flower  to  leaf,  from  leaf  to 
twig,  from  twig  to  branch, from  branch  to  trunk, 
from  trunk  to  root  and  from  root  to  all  under- 
ground ramifications.  Such  inspection  gives 
one  knowledge  of  more  than  a  flower.  It  dis- 
closes to  one  a  system — a  perfected  whole — a 
plant  in  its  entirety.  We  should  not  have  the 
fruit  of  the  New  Testament  unless  we  had  the 
stalk  and  the  underground  roots  of  the  old. 

One  must  study  the  Old  Testament  in  order 
to  have  a  complete  system  of  knowledge  respect- 
ing the  Christian  religion.  One  will  find  not 
merely  intellectual  knowledge  out  of  this  study, 
but  he  will  meet,  all  along,  the  germs  of  those 
moral  truths  which  take  on  such  high  and  beau- 
tiful coloring  in  the  New.  One  will  find  as  he 
reads  the  Old  Testament,  that  he  is  not  only  in- 
creasing his  historic  knowledge,  but  that  he  is 
coming  in  contact  with  those  salvatory  moral 
elements  which  Paul  said  could  be  found  there. 
Neither  intellectually  nor  morally,  then,  can  we 
afford  to  discard  the  Old  Testament. 

It  is  very  diflficult  to  execute  what  ought  to  be 
one  of  the  first  functions  of  a  Christian  minister, 
to  wit,  to  read  and  expound    the    Scriptures  to 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  257 

the  people.  Custom  is  mightier  than  any  man — 
mightier  than  we  all  combined.  Custom  has  de- 
creed the  reading  of  one  chapter  or  snatches 
from  several  at  a  service.  There  are  so  many 
chapters  in  the  whole  Scriptures  that  this  read- 
ing can  never  be  anything  else  than  fragmentary. 
If  one  has  only  the  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures 
which  he  hears  read  in  church  he  will  never  get 
any  very  definite  idea  of  the  Scripture  system. 
Each  chapter  will  be  a  sort  of  proverb  standing 
by  itself.  One  cannot  make  up  a  connected 
whole,  a  sj^stem,  out  of  such  isolated  reading, 
I  am  compelled  to  fall  back,  theq,  on  exhorta- 
tion to  private  reading  of  the  Scripture. 

Many  of  you  are  far  advanced  in  intellectual 
culture.  You  know  the  rank  of  the  Scriptures 
on  the  scale  of  intellectual  possessions.  I  have 
no  need  to  speak  about  the  desirableness  of  per- 
fecting knowledge  on  this  line.  Many  of  j^ou 
have  read  the  Scriptures  many  times.  I  wish  to 
suggest  that  it  would  be  well  still  to  make  an 
excursion  over  the  whole  field  of  the  Bible. 
You  can  read  rapidly.  Some  one  says  the  whole 
New  Testament  could  be  read  in  a  forenoon. 

I  especially  entreat  the  young  people  to  take 
up  the  Old  Testament  for  private   reading  and 


258  THE  STOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

not  to  lay  it  down  till  they  have  come  in  order 
to  the  last  verse  of  Malachi.  The  novel  and  the 
magazine  and  modern  history  have  charm  and 
value.  But  if  you  will  take  hold  of  the  Old 
Testament  with  resolution  and  read  it  through, 
twenty  or  thirty  years  from  now  you  will  say 
you  could  not  have  put  your  time  to  better  serv- 
ice even  for  your  intellectual  development. 

It  takes  will  to  do  it.  But  just  what  you  need 
is  culture  of  the  will.  You  want  an  athletic  will 
— one  that  will  bear  a  long,  strong  strain.  You 
will  never  get  this  without  an  exercise,  a  gym- 
nastic, adapted  to  the  result.  You  will  never 
know  whether  you  have  a  continuous  will  or 
not  till  you  have  done  something  which  proves 
to  you  that  you  have  such  a  will — a  will  you 
can  trust.  To  take  the  Old  Testament  and 
against  all  temptations  of  all  sorts  to  hold  your- 
self through  book  after  book  till  you  have  fin- 
ished the  whole,  is  one  of  the  best  exercises  for 
a  facult}^  which  a  great  many  persons  credit 
themselves  with  possessing  but  which  very  few 
persons  really  have.  You  will  tell  me,  if  you 
read  the  Old  Testament  through,  if  you  have 
not  got  religion  out  of  the  effort,  that  you  have 
the  most  satisfactory  conviction  you  ever  had  of 


P ARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  259 

your  self-control — self-mastery — and    that    is    a 
long  way  on  the  road  to  religion. 

I  hope  the  time  taken  in  this  exordium  and 
exhortation  will  not  hinder  turning  thought  to 
the  real  subject  we  have  in  hand.  Your  opinions 
respecting  many  things  in  the  Old  Testament 
will  change.  I  regard  it  as  desirable  that  they 
should  change.  The  alternative,  I  think,  is 
change  of  view  from  that  which  has  been  held 
in  respect  to  many  things,  or  repudiation — 
change  of  view  or  the  rocks  of  Ingersollism. 
You  can  make  many  very  radical  changes  and 
come  out  with  your  reverence  for  the  Old  Tes- 
tament not  diminished  but  strengthened. 

I  have  put  at  the  head  of  this  discourse  two 
titles:  "The  Story  of  Eden,"  and  "The  Parable 
of  the  Prodigal  Son."  I  regard  these  titles  as 
equivalent.  You  may  put  tlie  sign  of  equality 
between  them.  The  story  of  Eden  is  the  first 
version  of  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son. 
The}^  represent  parallel  transactions.  They  both 
teach  the  same  thing  and  were  meant  to  teach 
the  same  thing,  to  wit,  the  experiences  and  for- 
tunes of  all  human  souls  in  their  path  of  aliena- 
tion from  God. 

The  parable  of  the  prodigal   son  is  not  par- 


260  THE  STORY  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

ticularly  a  historic  fact — was  never  meant  to 
set  forth  a  particular  historic  fact.  It  does  set 
forth  something  which  transpires  in  the  moral 
consciousness  of  every  man.  The  historic  form 
which  it  takes  on  is  mere  stage  scenery, intended 
to  give  vividness  to  the  moral  action  to  which  at- 
tention is  demanded.  Would  it  not  be  thought 
somewhat  ridiculous  if  we  were  to  send  an  ex- 
ploring expedition  to  hunt  up  the  home  of  the 
man  who  had  the  two  sons;  to  resurvey  the 
boundaries  of  the  field  where  the  boys  and  the 
servants  worked;  and  to  locate  the  pen  in  which 
the  fatted  calf  was  kept;  to  trace  the  road  the 
younger  son  took  when  he  went  into  a  far 
country;  to  locate  that  country  and  to  find  the 
tomb  of  the  citizen  to  whom  the  young  man 
joined  himself;  to  attempt  to  work  out  the  his- 
toric background  of  this  parable  as  though  it 
were  veritable  fact?  Would  not  common  sense 
come  to  the  rescue  of  most  people  and  show 
them  they  were  off  the  lines  of  right  interpreta- 
tion of  the  parable?  We  all  get  hold  of  the  right 
method  of  interpretation  of  that  parable  in  a 
prayer  meeting.  We  verify  that  parable  not  by 
appeal  to  it  as  the  history  of  a  definite  case,  but 
by  an  appeal  to  our  own  moral  consciousness  to 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  261 

see  if  we  do  not  find  therein  the  moral  transac- 
tions in  the  parable  set  forth.  Who  was  the 
prodigal  son?  Was  he  a  particular  man — whose 
name  was  Elnathan,  and  whose  father's  name 
was  Ben  Levi? 

No,  the  prodigal  son  is  an}'  man — is  every  man 
that  ever  came  to  the  surface  of  moral  discrimi- 
nation. Who  called  for  his  goods  and  went  into 
a  far  country?  You  and  I.  What  is  it  to  call 
for  our  goods  and  go  into  a  far  country?  Alas, 
3^ou  and  I  know!  We  know  what  it  is  to  Uke 
our  lives  in  our  own  hands  and  set  up  independ- 
ently of  God.  In  what  year  did  that  famine  take 
place?  Alas,  in  every  year  since  man  was  en- 
dowed with  a  moral  nature,  and  in  every  time 
of  every  year  when  a  man  has  wandered  away 
from  God!  Where  did  that  famine  take  place? 
In  everjr  soul  of  man  that  ever  sinned  against 
God.  And  it  will  take  place  to  the  end  of  time 
in  every  soul  of  man  that  doeth  evil.  In  that 
land  a  mighty  famine  will  always  arise. 

That  critical  point — he  came  to  himself — in 
whose  bosom  was  that  point  located?  In  the 
bosom  of  every  man  who  has  repented  of  sin 
and  turned  to  righteousness  and  God.  The 
journey  home,  the  compassion  of  the  father,  the 


202  THE  S  TOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

subsequent  reinvestment  in  sonship,  the  rich 
clothing  and  the  feast — why,  the  very  children 
have  experienced  all  this  within  themselves 
whenever  they  have  repented  of  a  wrong  or  a 
sin.  The}^  are  not  thrown  off  the  track  when 
the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  is  read  to  them. 
Every  man  knows  the  road  and  the  facts  of  the 
departure,  if  he  does  not  of  the  return.  And 
there  are  certain  living  presumptions  within  him, 
of  which  he  can  never  dispossess  himself, that  he 
would  find  the  story  of  the  return  to  be  true  if 
he  would  only  return. 

We  have  no  difficulty  in  interpreting  this  par- 
able when  we  take  it  into  the  field  of  the  moral 
consciousness.  There  we  find  the  historic  facts 
in  our  own  being.  They  are  not  some  one's 
else  facts.  They  are  ours.  It  is  our  history 
that  is  told  in  tlie  departure  and  in  all  its  for- 
tunes. The  squalor,  the  want,  the  hunger,  the 
degradation  of  sin,  the  companionship  of  swine 
— where  is  the  theater  of  this  experience?  In 
all  human  souls  that  sin  against  God;  and  "all 
have  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of 
God." 

I  hope  we  have  clear  the  method  of  interpre- 
tation of  this   parable    of    the    prodigal  son  and 


PM^BLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  263 

Where  it  is  that  we  go  to  verify  it.    The  theater 
of  experience  and  verification   is   in   the  soul  of 

every  man.  _ 

Before  I  go  back   to    the    old    version  of  this 
parable  there  are   two   preliminary  questions  of 
which  I   want   to   make    disposition.     Suppose 
some  exceedingly  wise  man  comes  along  and 
savs  to  me,  "Don't  you  know  that  the  parable 
of  the  prodigal  son  is  a  myth?"    What  would  it 
be  wise  for  me  to  do?     Fly  into  a  perturbation, 
if   not   into  a  passion,  and   tell   him,   "No,  it  .s 
not"?  Would  it  not  be  better  to  ask  him  what  a 
myth  means.     And    when    he    answers,    as   he 
must,  that   a   myth   is   something    which  men 
have  told,  and  told  because  it  is  usually  a  bit  of 
universal   or    typical    experience,     I   can     say, 
"Very  «ood;  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your 
term;  the  parable   of   the   prodigal  son  is  some- 
thing which  men  tell  because  they  know  it,  part 
of  it  all  too  well  and   part  all  too  ill,  but  it  is  a 
bit  of  universal  knowledge."  I  see  the  term  may 
cover  the  ground  of  truth  for  the  verification  of 
which  a  man   commonly  explores   the   field   of 
consciousness  within  and  not  the  historic  realm 
without.     Do  we  lose   anything  by  calhng  the 
parable  of  the  prodigal  son  a  "muthos"?    What 


2G-4  THE  STOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AhID  THE 

Other  speech  is  there  that  compares  with  it  in 
the  reach  and  absoluteness  of  its  truth?  And 
now  our  critic  is  on  his  feet  once  more.  Be- 
hold what  childish  anthropomorphism  I  How 
silly  to  represent  God  as  a  man  walking  in  a 
garden !  It  may  be  that  the  critic  is  the  child 
in  the  case.  It  may  be  that  the  writer  knew 
what  he  was  about  and  that  the  critic  does  not. 
"There  were  giants  in  the  earth  in  those  days." 
There  were  men  of  strong  thought — men  who 
knew  how  to  pack  a  truth  so  as  to  make  it  port- 
able; so  that  it  could  be  carried  down  the  ages, 
so  that  men  would  "tell"  it,   men  who  knew 

"Truth  in  closest  words  shall  fail 
When  truth  embodied  in  a  tale 
Shall  enter  in  at  lowly  doors." 

Men  have  deified,  theosized  the  term  Logos; 
we  need  not  fear  to  make  Muthos  anthropic,i.e., 
make  it  co-extensive  with  man.  If  Muthos  is  a 
tale  that  men  tell  because  men  can  recognize  it 
when  told  them,  that  is  the  tale  to  tell.  Thank 
God  for  the  Muthoi — the  tales  men  have  told 
and  always  will  tell. 

There  are  those  who  deny  the  fall^  of  man. 
Can  a  man  deny  the  universal  applicability  of 
the  parable   of   che  prodigal?     If  the  parable  of 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  265 

the  prodigal  son  is  of  universal  application, then 
the  fall  of  man  is  a  truth.  Every  man  knows 
in  his  own  consciousness  that  he  has  called  for 
his  portion  of  goods  and  departed  into  a  far 
country;  that  there  his  goods  have  been  wasted 
and  the  famine  has  come.  Everj^  man  has 
reason  to  suspect  that  this  has  been  the  experi- 
ence of  his  neighbor.  That  is  a  fall.  That 
necessitates  a  universal  fall — a  fall  of  the  first 
men  as  well  as  the  last.  If  there  was  a  man  or 
men  to  begin  with  who  had  not  this  experience, 
then  he  or  they  were  so  far  removed  from  us  that 
we  cannot  call  them  our  brethren.  We  belong 
in  a  race  that  would  know  individually  by  ex- 
perience the  first  part  of  the  parable  of  the  prod- 
igal son.  It  is  no  answer  to  say  that  man  be- 
gan low  and  has  been  gradually  climbing.  That 
is  a  general  truth  with  regard  to  man's  experi- 
ence. He  did  begin  low,  in  that,  and  he  has 
been  climbing  up.  But  that  is  not  the  line 
we  are  on.  However  low  man  began  morally, 
he  found  a  lower  depth — and  that  is  a  fall. 
However  small  the  capital  with  which  man  be- 
gan moralljs  he  called  for  that  little  and  went 
by  himself  into  a  far  country  and  made  it  less 
and  the  famine  came — and  that   is   a  fall.     The 


266  THE  STOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

race  has  its  consciousness  of  fall.  And  the 
first  man  or  men  had  his  or  their  share  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  race. 

Adam,  were  he  individual,  or  a  tribe,  or 
primal  man  generic,  had  reason  from  his  or 
their  own  moral  conduct  to  know  the  meaning 
of  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son.  It  is  idle  to 
say  that  the  first  men  had  not  risen — that  that 
was  all  the  matter.  There  never  was  a  man  of 
them  that  staid  up  morally  as  far  as  he  got. 
There  is  not  a  fact  in  the  universe  so  easy  of 
proofas  that  of  the  fall  of  man.  It  is  hard  to 
prove  the  existence  of  the  external  world.  But 
it  is  not  hard  to  prove  to  a  man  what  has  trans- 
pired in  his  own  soul.  You  may,  if  you  choose, 
object  to  the  use  of  the  word  proof  in  reference 
to  a  self  evidencing  fact.  Put  it  in  another 
way — you  may  say  a  man  cannot  deny  what  his 
own  soul  asserts. 

There  is  one  other  collateral  truth  at  which 
we  will  take  a  glance.  Suppose  the  prodigal 
son,  when  he  was  in  that  far  country,  had  met 
and  married  a  prodigal  daughter  and  they  had 
reared  children  there  in  their  business  of  swine 
tending,  and  they  too  had  come  up  and  mar- 
ried similarly  and  continued   in   the   same  busi- 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  267 

ness,  do  you  not  suppose  that  there  would  have 
been  developed  a  strong  tendency  to  get  out 
into  more  remote  countries  and  engage  in  busi- 
ness even  more  debasing  than  swine  tending? 
But  are  we  not  here  on  the  track  of  two  truths, 
the  truth  of  bad  heredity  attested  by  science  and 
of  depravity  attested  by  religion? 

The  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  is  possibly  a 
key  to  a  great  deal  more  than  we  have  supposed. 
Now  suppose  we  carry  this  method  of  dealing 
with  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  back  to  the 
story  of  Eden.  Of  course  the  very  thing  at  issue 
is  to  settle  upon  the  basis  on  which  we  are  to 
treat  that  story.  Are  we  dealing  therewith  sim- 
ple, plain,  unvarnished  historical  fact, or  are  we 
dealing  with  an  illustrative  statement  of  moral 
experience  as  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  ? 
Is  what  is  stated  in  historic  form  the  main  thing 
to  be  kept  in  mind,  or  is  the  historic  form  mere 
setting — mere  stage  scenery,  for  which  anything 
else  might  be  substituted — for  the  exhibition  of 
deeper  moral  truth?  In  other  words,  are  we  to 
insist  on  the  actual  verity  of  the  historic  setting 
in  one  case  more  than  in  the  other?  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  case  is  plainer  with  the  Eden 
story  than  it  is  with  the  parable  of  the  prodigal 


268  THE  STORY  OF  EDEN  /fND  THE 

son.  If  everything  is  true  to  the  letter  in  the 
Eden  story,  then  it  becomes  at  once  a  history  of 
an  experience  so  far  removed  from  ours  that  we 
have  nothing  in  common  with  it  and  cannot  be 
instructed  by  it.  It  is  a  history  of  fortunes  and 
fates  in  some  other  world  than  this. 

Just  think  a  moment.  Did  the  knowledge  of 
right  and  wrong  grow  on  a  tree,  so  that  a  man 
might  pluck  off  the  fruit  of  that  tree  and  the  eat- 
ing it  tell  him  what  was  right  and  what  was 
wrong? 

Did  immortality  grow  on  another  tree, so  that 
a  man  might  put  forth  his  hands  and  eat  of  the 
fruit  thereof  and  become  immortal  in  spite  of 
the  Almighty?  Do  you  not  know  that  you  are 
dealing  with  metaphors — figures  here,  just  as 
you  are  in  the  parable  of  the  talents  or  of  the 
sower  and  the  seed?  To  find  out  the  meaning 
of  all  this  you  are  not  to  go  back  and  speculate 
on  some  primitive  historic  condition,  but  to  go 
into  your  own  soul  and  see  if  you  cannot  find 
out  some  meaning  on  the  side  of  your  own  moral 
consciousness. 

Do  women  go  out  nowadays  and  hold  con- 
versations in  good  round  English  with  serpents, 
the  serpent  meanwhile  speaking   as  good  Eng- 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  269 

lish  as  the  woman?  Do  you  suppose  a  snake 
and  a  woman  ever  carried  on  a  conversation  in 
good  round  Hebrew  or  any  other  tongue  of  hu- 
man speech?  Is  it  customary  for  temptations  to 
sin  among  us  to  come  from  the  suggestions  of 
the  conversations  of  serpents?  The  serpent  is 
figure  for  the  wily,  intrusive,  seductive  power 
of  temptation — for  what,  try  as  much  as  we 
please,  we  can  do  no  better  than  to  designate  as 
the  serpentine  character  of  temptation.  We  do 
not  have  any  trouble  when  we  read  in  Hamlet: 

"But  know,  thou  noble  youth. 
The  serpent  that  did  sting  thy  father's  life 
Now  wears  his  crown." 

If  the  serpent  in  the  Eden  case  is  to  be  a  real 
animal,  a  real  ophidian, then  I  think  it  necessary 
to  make  all  Jesus'  parables  not  supposed  cases, 
but  a  recital  of  absolute  historic  facts. 

The  swine  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal  son 
were  not  mere  symbols  of  degradation  taken  up 
by  the  Saviour  for  illustration,  but  actual  swine, 
as  actual  as  the  herd  that  "ran  violently  down  a 
steep  place  into  the  lake"  at  Gadara.  Did  God 
in  literal  verity  have  a  habit  of  walking  in  a 
garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day?  The  Infinite  does 
somewhat  different  from  that  in  these  days.  A 
flaming   sword   was  placed  at  the  east  of  Eden. 


270  THE  S  TOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

Now  Eden  ought  not  only  to  be  found,  but  that 
flaming  sword  ought  to  be  found  there  still,  for 
the  plain  implication  of  the  Scripture  is  that  it 
was  never  taken  away.  It  would  be  likely  to 
be  an  object  prominent  enough  to  have  been 
discovered  b}^  this  time  if  it  were  a  thing  of 
sense.  It  was  and  is  a  thing  of  spirit, as  we  shall 
see. 

I  have  done  a  little  destructive  work  on  this 
Eden  story,  not  for  the  sake  of  destruction,  but 
for  the  sake  of  defense  and  construction.  It 
amounts  to  something  with  a  skillful  general  on 
what  ground  he  draws  up  his  lines.  I  believe 
there  is  a  line  of  impregnable  defense  of  the  Eden 
story.  But  now  shall  we  call  this  story  an  old 
wives'  fable?  Then  the  story  of  the  prodigal 
son  is  a  fable  of  the  old  wives'  sort.  That  we 
are  not  willing  to  allow.  Is  this  stor}^  a  myth? 
Men  surely  have  told  this  story.  Call  it  a 
myth,  you  do  not  by  that  term  put  it  out  of  the 
category  of  the  inspired  truth  of  God,  any  more 
than  you  can  so  put  out  the  parable  of  the  prodi- 
gal son. 

There  may  be  something  of  the  historic  in  the 
background  of  the  Eden  story.  I  do  not  know 
but  that  there  was  a  first  man  whose  name    was 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  271 

Adam  and  a  first  woman  whose  name  was  Eve. 
But  the  Scriptures  on  their  face  treat  these  terms 
as  designations  of  man  and  woman  generally; 
certainly  they  treat  them  so  in  this  Eden  story. 
Adam  is  "the  man" — man  generic,  as  "the  ox" 
is  ox  generic.  This  is  not  biography,  but  his- 
tory writ  large — universal  history,  history  of 
moral  experience,  what  has  been  true  of  every 
man,  what  must  have  been  true  of  the  very  first. 
A  moral  nature  wakes  up  to  find  within  itself 
certain  permissions  and  certain  restrictions.  The 
inward  voice  says:  "Thou  mayest,"  and,  "Thou 
shalt  not."  Coupled  with  the  "Thou  mayest" 
there  is  life.  Coupled  with  the  "Thou  shalt  not" 
there  is  death.  These  are  the  most  important  facts 
and  laws  of  the  universe.  They  are  what  God 
holds  to,  with  more  firmness  than  to  anything 
else.  They  are  the  great  trees  of  the  garden,"  the 
tree  of  life"  and  the  tree  of  "the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil."  This  latter  for  brevity's  sake  we 
will  call  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  evil.  One 
always  had  the  liberty  to  know  all  the  good  he 
could.  But  he  had  no  right  to  mix  his  knowl- 
edge of  good  with  a  knowledge  of  evil.  Wrong 
man  should  not  do.  Srn  man  should  not  know. 
There  is  a  prohibition  in  every  man's  soul.  It 
was  in  Eden,  in  the  soul  of  the  first  man. 


272  THE  STOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

That  most  radical  of  all  the  religious  experi- 
ences we  have — that  protest  against  wrong  and 
sin — was  in  the  breast  of  the  first  moral  agent. 
The  first  man  knew  the  "absolute  imperative" 
in  his  being  as  well  as  Kant  or  we.  What  hap- 
pens? The  man  who  obeys  the  prohibition  lives. 
But  every  man  questions  what  is  this  prohi- 
bition-'—why  may  I  not  see  what  is  on  the  other 
side  of  wrong  as  well  as  what  is  on  the  other  side 
of  right?  I  do  not  like  this  restriction ;  I  will  do 
as  I  please.  I  will  not  listen  to  fatherly  counsel; 
I  will  call  for  my  portion  of  goods  and  go  into 
any  country  I  please  and  set  up  by  myself.  The 
temptation  has  been  one  and  the  same,  and  all 
souls  have  yielded  to  it — the  first  man  did  and 
the  last  man  has.  Does  not  temptation  to  sin 
always  come  in  this  serpentine  guise — this  pro- 
hibited thing  would  be  pleasant — I  want  just 
the  knowledge,  just  the  experience  which  lies 
behind  that  prohibition? 

Now  graphic  beyond  power  of  an  amending 
touch  is  the  form  in  which  the  Eden  story  puts 
the  cause  and  consequences  of  temptation.  The 
fruit  forbidden  seems,  under  the  suggestion  of 
temptation,  to  be  good  for  food,  to  be  pleasant 
to  the  eyes,  and  to  be  desired  to  make  one  wise. 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  273 

So  temptation  has  painted  and  gilded  for  all 
time.  A  little  touch  by  the  way — vice  and  sin 
are  not  always,  not  often  solitary.  They  are 
social  in  their  nature.  We  influence  one  another. 
What  seems  desirable  to  one  he  will  make  known 
to  another. 

The  intimate  relationships  of  life  are  likely  to 
unify  moral  experience.  What  the  wife  chooses 
the  husband  will  choose.  Our  dearest  compan- 
ions may  be  our  tempters.  "He  that  loveth  father 
or  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of   me." 

The  fruit  is  eaten.  The  prohibition  is  disre- 
garded. The  absolute  imperative  is  unheeded. 
We  have  known  sin — have  made  it  our  own. 
What  is  behind  wrong  we  have  discovered.  Ah  I 
what  have  we  discovered?  Oh,  the  poverty  of 
it!  The  .wretchedness  of  it!  The  shame  of  it! 
The  soul  is  naked.   It  would  hide  and  be  covered. 

The  Hebrew  term  for  atonement  is  a  term 
which  means,  to  cover. 

The  soul  must  do  something.  It  must  cover 
up  its  shame.  Is  not  that  what  comes  to  pass 
in  every  human  soul  when  he  mixes  his  knowl- 
edge of  good  with  knowledge  of  evil?  Is  not 
that  what  lies  behind  the  disregard  of  any  Divine 
prohibition?     Is  not  that  what  lies  behind  the 


274  THE  S  TOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

knowledge  of  wrong?  This  is  the  first  pertur- 
bation of  sin.  But  that  is  not  all.  Calmer  mo- 
ments come,  only  to  bring  us  more  solemn 
reckoning.  God  walks  in  the  garden  in  the  cool 
of  the  day  with  every  human  soul.  He  asks  for 
an  account  of  its  doings.  The  hours  of  reflec- 
tion come.  Things  are  seen  in  their  true  light, 
and  yet  the  sinning  soul  will  not  let  the  light 
shine.  Men  hide  themselves  from  the  Divine 
inspection.  They  will  not  let  the  light  shine 
upon  their  souls  and  their  deeds. 

What  did  Adam  do  in  the  garden,  when  he 
hid  from  the  Lord,  but  what  all  souls  try  to  do 
when  they  attempt  to  escape  the  consequences 
of  their  sins?  "Men  love  darkness  rather  than 
light,because  their  deeds  are  evil."  That  is  true 
with  us.  That  was  true  with  the  first  man. 
No  better  parable  form  of  putting  that  sad  truth 
can  be  imagined  than  by  the  representation  of 
Adam  trjnng  to  hide  himself  when  he  hears  the 
call  of  the  voice  of  the  Lord. 

Need  I  stop  to  comment  on  the  consequences 
to  man  and  to  woman  of  sin?  How  has  the 
earth  been  cursed  by  man's  wrong!  Its  very 
fertility  has  departed  from  it.  Populous  places 
have  become  waste  deserts.   Over  the  fields  dev- 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  275 

astated  by  man's  wickedness  have  come  up 
thorns  and  thistles  instead  of  the  life-supporting 
grain.  Not  in  trust  and  rest  upon  his  fellow  has 
man  tilled  his  fields,  but   in    anxiety  and   fear. 

And  when  the  grain  has  ripened  and  he  has 
reaped  it,  robbers  have  carried  it  off,  made  slaves 
of  his  wife  and  children,  and  left  his  corpse  to 
be  blackened  and  burnt  in  the  smoking  stubble. 

Out  of  sin  has  come  to  woman — the  mother — 
anguish  not  only  at  the  beginning  but  through 
all  her  motherhood.  Under  sin  her  life  has  been 
blasted  and  she  has  descended  from  the  position 
of  an  endeared  help  at  his  side,  a  rib  taken  from 
his  side,  to  the  position  of  a  slave  beneath  his 
feet.  The  despotism  of  man  over  woman  is  the 
despotism  of  sin.  A  terrible  despotism  it  has 
been,  and  a  terrible  despotism  it  still  is,  where 
wrong  and  sin  reign.  There  are  one  or  two 
more  moral  elements  in  this  Eden  story  to  which 
I  must  call  attention.  The  Lord  God  prevents 
the  man  who  has  sinned  from  putting  forth  his 
hand  and  taking  of  the  tree  of  life. 

Well,  what  is  that  but  a  recognition  of  the 
great  law  that  righteousness  shall  have  its  re- 
wards and  sin  its  retributions — that  the  one  shall 
not  have  the  awards  of  the  other?     "Say  ye  to 


270  THE  STOR  Y  OF  EDEN  AND  THE 

the  righteous  that  it  shall  be  well  with  him;  for 
they  shall  eat  the  fruit  of  their  doings.  Woe  to 
the  wicked,  it  shall  be  ill  with  him;  for  the  re- 
ward of  his  hands  shall  be  given  him."  The 
soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die.  It  shall  not  grasp 
the  fruit  of  righteousness,  which  is  life.  Sin 
shall  have  its  own  fruit — indignation  and  wrath, 
tribulation  and  anguish.  Sin  when  it  is  finished 
bringeth  forth  death.  By  no  means  shall  it  lay 
hold  on  eternal  life.  Did  I  say  there  is  no  sword 
flaming  over  some  particular  spot  of  land  in  the 
east?  But  the  sword  that  was  put  at  the  east  of 
the  Eden  of  human  consciousness,  flames  there 
still.  We  talk  about  salvation.  Salvation  can 
do  some   things,  but   some  things  it  cannot  do. 

We  assert  the  necessity  of  atonement.  Atone- 
ment can  do  some  things,  but  it  cannot  do  all. 
Whoever  goes  out  of  the  Eden  of  innocence,  of 
sinlessness,  finds  some  things  barred  from  him 
forever.  Nothing  can  restore  them.  He  can  get 
back  to  them  in  no  way.  A  flaming  sword 
forever  debars  him  from  that  Eden. 

There  is  something  about  sin  which  no  atone- 
ment can  cure.  That  is  the  misery  of  it,  that 
is  the  fearfulness  of  it.  A  man  may  disown 
his  sin  and  become  a  new  man.     A  man's  sins 


PARABLE  OF  THE  PRODIGAL  SON  277 

may  be    atoned  for  and  forgiven.      But  he   will 
remember  them   forever.     The    memory  of   the 
degradation    of    committed    sin    will    be    one's 
memory  with    conscious   being.     We   may  find 
grace  to  help  us  bear  the  memory,  but  the  mem- 
ory we  shall  bear.    Memory  preserves  the  scars 
of  sin.     When  the  prodigal  son  had  been  estab- 
lished in  the  honors  of  his  father's  home, do  you 
not  suppose  he  thought  sometimes  of  those  days 
in  that  far  country— thought  of  his  wanton  prof- 
ligacy, of  the  shame  of  it,  of  those  days  of  pov- 
erty and  wretche"^ness  and  degradation,  and  re- 
flected that  they  were  his  days, that  he  had  lived 
them,  that  they  had    stamped   their   woeful   im- 
press upon  his  being?     You  cannot   divide   the 
continuity  of    human   life.      You  cannot   retain 
consciousness  and  smother  memory.     Step  out 
of  the  Eden  of  innocence  into  sin,  and  there  is 
a  flaming  sword  in  your  own  memory  that  will 
prevent  your  regaining  your  former  estate  of 
consciousness— of    sinlessness.      There    is    the 
Tearfulness  of  sin— the  eternal  bar  of  the  flaming 
sword  that  springs  up  behind  it.     Therefore  let 
us  sin  not.     Let  us  taste  of  no  fruit  which  God 
forbids.     Then  we  shall  eat  of  the  tree  of   life. 
The  gates  of  pearl  "shall  in   nowise   be   shut." 


278  THE  STOR  Y  OF  EDEN 

Away  from  the  flaming  sword  to  the  open  gates 
and  the  streets  of  gold  let  us  hasten. 

"Paradise,  and  groves 
Elysian,  Fortunate  Fields — like  those  of  old 
Sought  in  the  Atlantic  Main — why  should  they  be 
A  history  only  of  departed  things, 
Or  a  mere  fiction  of  what  never  was? 
For  the  discerning  intellect  of  man, 
When  wedded  to  this  goodly  universe 
In  love  and  holy  passion,  shall  find  these 
A  simple  produce  of  the  common  day." 

WORDSW^ORTH. 

T/ie  Recluse, 


XII. 

PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY. 

Is  it  not  a  little  strange  that  we  should  cus- 
tomarily turn  to  the  Psalms  for  an  introductory 
exercise  in  worship?  We  do  it  not  from  any  ex- 
ternal compulsion.  We  do  it  solely  because  we 
are  impressed  with  the  unrivaled  fitness  of  the 
Psalms  to  express  religious  feeling.  We  are  not 
alone  in  this  impression.  The  Christian  church, 
turning  to  the  Old  Testament,  opens  ten  times 
at  the  Psalms  to  once  in  any  other  book. 

Though  not  the  author  of  them  all,  David  has 
been  held  to  be  the  author  of  so  large,  or  so 
characteristic  a  portion  of  them,  that  the  whole 
collection  has  passed  usually  under  his  name, 
as  The  Psalms  of  David. 

The  problem  presents   itself  to  the    thinking 

mind — whence  did  this  man  derive  his  power  to 

lead  men  in  all  ages  and  in  all  countries  in   the 

worship  of  God?     How  came  David  so  near  to 

279 


280  PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY 

God's  heart  that  the  pious  and  the  worshipful  of 
all  time  should  feel  that  he  has  best  framed  what 
their  own  hearts  would  utter? 

If  you  will  read  over  the  life  of  David,  you 
will  find  nothing  miraculous  in  it.  The  whole 
history  is  peculiarly  of  the  earth,  earthy.  I  call 
attention  to  that  fact  as  showing,  contrary  to  a 
somewhat  common  impression, not  the  lavishness 
but  the  economy  of  miracle  on  the  Biblical  arena. 
God  spake  to  David  neither  by  audible  voice 
nor  by  vision.  His  whole  life  seems  to  have 
been  spent  under  the  ordinary  conditions  of 
men.  When  you  read  his  life  and  reign,  the 
miraculous  element  comes  out  no  more  in  them 
than  in  the  case  of  any  other  monarch — say 
Charles  V.  or  Cromwell,  or  in  the  case  of  any 
other  warrior — Csesar  or  General  Grant.  Yet 
David  is  the  great  choir  leader  of  men  as  they 
swell  their  anthems  of  praise  to  God. 

There  is  one  feature  of  these  Psalms  of  David 
that  would  give  us  some  light  upon  the  question 
asked  if  our  attention  were  more  closely  called 
to  it  when  we  read  them.  I  do  not  know  that 
I  can  denominate  this  characteristic  any  better 
than  by  calling  it  a  struggle  for  God,  or,  to  put 
it  in  another  way,  a   struggle   for   moral   exist- 


PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY  281 

ence.  David  can  lead  us  to  God  because  he  has 
fought  over  so  much  more  of  the  way  to  God 
than  we  have.  We  read  over  the  Psalms  care- 
lessly, without  discovering  how  much  they  re- 
veal. Nowhere  else  in  all  literature  is  so  much 
of  a  man's  religious  experience  revealed  as  in 
David's  Psalms.  Nowhere  else  are  the  lights 
and  shadows  that  play  over  a  soul  in  its  reli- 
gious   life   so   delicately,   faithfully,   accurately 

touched. 

It  is  to  the  shadows  that  I  wish    first   to    call 
attention.     For   the   shadows   we    should    look 
when  we  read  the  Psalms.     God's  face  was  not 
always  visible  to  David.     It  was  often  hid   be- 
hind a  cloud,  and  the  Psalms  disclose  to  us  the 
workings  of  his  soul  in  his  darkness.     That  at- 
titude of  mind  is  more  prominent  than  any  other 
in  the  Psalms.     Then,  in  the  darkness,  came  an 
intensity  of   struggle   that  we  know  nothing  of. 
Nothing  can  be  more  pathetic   than    his    plead- 
ings with  God  in  these  seasons   of   loss   of    the 
Divine  presence.    Just  look  at:  ''Hide  not   thy 
face  far   from    me.     Put   not  thy  servant  away 
in  anger.     Thou    hast    been   my   help."     How 
natural!     A  hope  flushes  in  his  bosom  that  God 
will  befriend  him  because  he  has  befriended  him, 


282  PSALMS  NO T  IMPRECA TOR Y 

and  he  tells  it  to  God  as  if  to  remind  him  that 
he  had  an  interest  in  him  by  the  amount  of  past 
blessing  conferred.  The  plummet  of  religious 
pathos  never  went  deeper  down  than  here: 
"Leave  me  not  nor  forsake  me,  O  God  of  my 
salvation."  Whatever  else  that  wrestling  of 
Jacob  with  the  angel  might  be,  it  was  certainly 
a  struggle  of  his  own  soul  for  a  blessing  from 
God.  David  lets  us  in  to  see  struggles  of  his 
own  equally  intense.  This,  bear  in  mind,  is 
probabl}'  actual  experience:  "I  am  weary  with 
my  groaning.  All  the  night  make  I  m}^  bed  to 
swim.  I  water  my  couch  with  my  tears."  We 
shall  perhaps  never  see  how  much  there  is  in 
that  till  we,  conscious  of  the  hidings  of  God's 
face,  have  worn  away  the  wearj^  hours  of  the 
night,  till  the  stars  have  paled  out  in  the  light 
of  da}^  storming  the  mercies  of  the  Almighty 
that  we  may  once  more  have  their  sweet  pos- 
session. 

He  is  not  idly  dallying  with  poetry  who  writes 
thus:  "I  am  troubled,  I  am  bowed  down  greatly, 
I  go  mourning  all  the  day  long.  I  am  feeble 
and  sore  broken.  Lord,  my  desire  is  before 
thee,  and  my  groaning  is  not  hid  from  the." 
"Be  pleased,  O  Lord,  to  deliver  me;  O  Lord, 


PSALMS  NO  T I  MP  RE  CA  TOR  Y  2S3 

make  haste  to  help  me."  We  sometimes  strug- 
gle to  stay  up  our  own  selves,  in  our  own  hours 
of  darkness  and  conscious  separation  from  God. 
And  we  erect  a  staging  for  hope,  and  feel  that 
we  have  something  that  we  can  trust,  and  then 
a  whirlwind  of  desolation  sweeps  over  us.  All 
our  work  to  stay  ourselves  is  found  as  a  broken 
reed,  and  we  are  prostrate  in  the  dust,  sensible 
only  that  we  are  prostrate  and  overwhelmed. 
How  graphically,  past  all  amendment,  is  this 
experience  delineated  in  Psalm  XLII. :  "Why 
art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul?  and  why  art 
thou  disquieted  in  me?  Hope  thou  in  God; 
for  I  shall  yet  praise  him  for  the  help  of  his 
countenance.  O  my  God,  my  soul  is  cast  down 
within  me."  And  then  the  process  goes  on 
again  of  feeling  for  hope  in  his  hopelessness  by 
way  of  recalling  God's  mercies  in  past  days  to 
his  children.  Though  he  says,  ''As  the  hart 
panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so  panteth  my 
soul  after  thee,  O  God.  My  soul  thirsteth  for 
God,  for  the  livingGod,"yet  God  seems  to  have 
sent  him  away  for  the  time  with  his  longing 
still  unsatisfied,  with  a  sense  of  vacancy  still  in 
his  soul,  for  he  leaves  the  matter  with  the  same 
sad  refrain   playing   over  his  unsatisfied  heart. 


284  PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY 

^' Why  art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul  ?  and  why 
art  thou  disquieted  within  me?  Hope  in  God; 
for  I  shall  yet  praise  him,  who  is  the  health  of 
my  countenance  and  my  God."  The  soul  is  de- 
nied, yet  it  clings  with  a  grasp  unbroken  to  its 
hope.  God  tries  us  to  see  how  much  tension  the 
cable  of  our  attachment  to  him  will  bear,  and  so 
he  does  not  alwa3^s  satisfy  the  hungry  immedi- 
ately with  good  things.  We  find  an  expression 
of  that  fact  and  of  the  proper  attitude  of  the  soul 
in  it,  in  the  hymn  of  George  Croly: 

''Teach  me  the  struggles  of   the  soul  to  bear. 
To  check  the  rising  doubt,  the  rebel  sigh; 
Teach  me  the  patience  of  unanswered  praj^er." 

He  tried  David  in  like  manner,and  the  reason 
why  David  is  a  guide  for  us  is  that  though 
baffled  in  his  desire,  though  his  heart  was  sunk 
within  him,  still  no  force  could  separate  him 
from  God,  and  his  desolation  echoes  a  manly 
willfulness  as  in  it  he  still  cries:  ''Hope  thou  in 
God,  for  I  shall  yet  praise  him,  who  is  the  health 
of  my  countenance  and  my  God."  I  do  not 
want  to  weary  with  quotations,  but  I  want  to 
use  enough  of  them  to  impress  the  idea  that  a 
larger  part  of  the  Psalms, than  we  usually  think, 
is  written  in  the  minor  key. 


PSALMS  NO  T IMPRECA  TOR  Y  285 

"Be  merciful  unto  me.    Be  merciful  unto  me, 

0  God,  for  my  soul  trusteth  in  thee."  "My 
heart  is  fixed, O  God,  my  heart  is  fixed."  "Save 
me,  O  God,  for  the  waters  are  come  in  unto  my 
soul.  I  sink  in  deep  mire  where  there  is  no 
standing.  I  am  come  unto  deep  waters  where 
the  floods  overflow  me.  I  am  weary  of  my  cry- 
ing; my  throat  is  dried.      Mine  eyes   fail  while 

1  wait  for  my  God.  O  God,  thou  knowest  my 
foolishness,  and  my  sins  are  not  hid  from  thee. 
Let  not  the  water  flood  overflow  me,  neither  let 
the  deep  swallow  me  up,  and  let  not  the  pit  shut 
her  mouth  upon  me.  Hide  not  thy  face  from 
thy  servant;  for  I  am  in  trouble;  hear  me 
speedily.  Thou  hast  known  m}^  reproach  and 
my  shame  and  dishonor.  I  am  poor  and  sor- 
rowful. My  heart  is  smitten  and  withered  like 
grass,  so  that  I  forget  to  eat  my  bread.  For  I 
have  eaten  ashes  like  bread,  and  mingled  my 
drink  with  weeping.  My  days  are  like  a  shadow 
that  declineth,  and  I  am  w^ithered  like  grass." 

Then  there  is  Psalm  XXII. — a  very  dirge  of 
the  soul,  forever  consecrated  to  trial  and  distress 
by  the  Saviour's  quoting  from  it,  if  not  reciting 
it,  in  the  last  moments  of  the  cross:  "My  God, 
my  God,   why   hast    thou    forsaken    me?     Far 


286  PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATOR  Y 

from  helping  me  are  the  words  of  my  roaring. 
O  my  God,  I  cry  in  the  daytime,  but  thou  an- 
swerest  not,  and  in  the  night  season,  but  find  no 
rest." 

Jesus  was  no  more  son  of  Da^id  in  the  line  of 
royal  descent  than  in  this  ver}^  quality  of  ac- 
quaintance with  sorrow  and  with  struggle  in  the 
Divine  life.  So  deep  had  David  gone  in  this 
experience  that  the  language  which  came  out 
of  it  rose  to  the  Saviour's  lips  when  all  his  woes 
were  culminating  in  death  on  the  cross:  "My 
God,  ray  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?" 

It  is  only  when  we  have  looked  in  on  these 
hymns  of  sorrow  and  trial  and  darkness  that  we 
can  understand  David,  and  see  how  widely  he 
swept  the  lyre  of  human  experience.  Yea,  it  is 
only  by  studying  the  poems  of  this  cast  that  we 
can  appreciate  those  of  a  confident  or  jubilant 
vein.  You  can  appreciate  the  light  and  trust 
and  peace  of:  "The  Lord  is  my  shepherd,  I 
shall  not  want;  he  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in 
green  pastures,  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still 
waters,"  only  when  you  see  it  coming  forth  from 
a  soul  from  whose  background  of  darkness- 
came:  "My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  for- 
saken me?"  "Our  fathers  trusted  in  thee.  They 


PSALMS  NO  T  IMPRECA  TOR  Y  287 

trusted  and  thou  didst  deliver  them.  Be  not  far 
from  me,  for  trouble  is  near;  for  there  is  none  to 
help."  Then  "The  Lord  is  my  shepherd" 
comes  to  us  like  the  smiling  sunlight  streaming 
in  after  the  passage  of  a  black  cloud,  painting 
a  bow  of  promise  and  hope  on  its  retreating 
chill  and  gloom.  And  those  triumphant  strains 
of  jubilance  and  delight:  "Bless  the  Lord,  O 
my  soul,  and  all  that  is  within  me,  bless  his  holy 
name.  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  and  forget 
not  all  his  benefits,"  are  incomputably  magnified 
as  expressions  of  the  joy  of  God  found,  when 
you  have  paused  to  see  that  the  soul  thus  jubi- 
lant has  groped  for  God  in  the  darkness, crying, 
"Hide  not  thy  face  far  from  me." 

It  is  easy  to  see  the  difference  between  Isaiah 
and  David.  The  difference  is  as  marked  as  be- 
tween a  speech  of  Burke  and  a  song  of  Burns. 
The  difference  is  not  merely  in  the  fact  that 
Isaiah  is  an  epic  while  David  is  a  lyric  poet,  for 
Isaiah  himself  sometimes  touched  the  lyre.  But 
Isaiah  is  essentially  epic  even  when  his  style  is 
lyric.  It  is  the  heart  of  a  patriot  and  a  states- 
man that  finds  utterance  in  all  his  song.  David's 
lyrics  are  a  personal  utterance.  They  are  de- 
nationalized.     They  know  no   country   and    no 


288  PSALMS  NO  T IMPRECA  TOR  Y 

political  problems.  They  are  the  cry  of  a  lone 
soul  to  the  lone  God.  God  is  the  only  God  and 
David  is  the  only  man,  and  his  song  the  breath 
of  desire  for  friendship,  trust,  amity  between 
these  two  beings — seraphim  and  cherubim  and 
humanity  else  being  dismissed  from  view.  *'As 
the  hart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so 
panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God" — gives  you 
the  mental  attitude  of  David. 

Now  take  a  lyric  of  Isaiah:  "In  that  day 
thou  shalt  say" — "Thou^' — you  see  a  third  person 
beside  Isaiah  and  God  on  the  stage  already. 
Who  this  third  person  is, we  shall  see  by  and  by. 
"Thou  shalt  say,  O  Lord,  I  will  praise  thee; 
though  thou  wast  angry  with  me,  thine  anger  is 
turned  awa}^  and  thou  comfortedst  me.  Behold, 
God  is  my  salvation,  I  will  trust  and  not  be 
afraid,  for  the  Lord  Jehovah  is  my  strength  and 
my  song;  he  also  is  become  my  salvation. 
Therefore  with  joy  shall  ye  draw  water  out  of 
the  wells  of  salvation.  And  in  that  day  shall  ye 
say.  Praise  the  Lord,  call  upon  his  name,  de- 
clare his  doings  among  the  people,  make  men- 
tion that  his  name  is  exalted.  Sing  unto  the 
Lord,  for  he  hath  done  excellent  things,  this  is 
known  in  all  the  earth.   Cry  out  and  shout,  thou 


*      PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY  289 

inhabitant  of  Zion,  for  great  is  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel  in  the  midst  of  thee." 

You  find  now  who  is  the  third  person  on  the 
stage.  It  is  "the  inhabitant  of  Zion,"  and  there 
come  before  you  the  throngs  of  Jerusalem,  the 
people  of  Israel,  and  the  nations  of  the  earth — 
"the  dromedaries  of  Midian  and  Ephah,  the 
flocks  of  Kedar  and  the  ships  of  Tarshish." 

Your  brief  Ij^ric  strikes  out  into  thought  after 
all  with  the  long  swing  of  the  epos.  The  his- 
tory of  this  lyric  of  Isaiah  is  commentary  con- 
firmatory of  the  view  we  have  before  us.  That 
lyric  was  the  patriotic  national  song  of  Israel — 
"The  Marseillaise,"  the  "God  Save  the  Queen," 
the  "Hail  Columbia,"  of  the  Jew.  Its  inspira- 
tion is  social,  not  personal;  it  is  a  song  of  the 
people,  not  a  song  of  the  soul.  You  read:  "In 
the  last  da}',  that  great  day  of  the  feast,  Jesus 
stood  and  cried,  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come 
unto  me  and  drink."  You  will  understand  the 
situation  of  affairs  if  you  think  of  Jesus  as  thus 
crying  at  the  close  of  a  jubilant  ceremony  in 
which  the  priests  drew  and  poured  water  on  the 
ground  as  lavishly  and  as  fast  as  they  could, 
while  the  people  sang  this  lyric  of  Isaiah,  beat- 
ing heaven  with  the  strength  of  their  choruses; 


290  PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY 

"With  joy  shall  ye  draw  water  out  of  the  wells 
of  salvation,"  and,  "Cr}^  out  and  shout,  thou  in- 
habitant of  Zion,  for  great  is  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel  in  the  midst  of  thee." 

It  is  going  out  of  my  way,  but  I  cannot  for- 
bear to  take  one  step  aside  here.  What  conflict 
of  thought  must  there  not  have  been  in  the  mind 
of  Jesus  as  he  heard  the  people  sing  this  lyric  of 
Isaiah?  If  the  traditions  that  come  to  us  are 
trustworthy  (good  for  anything),  the  fathers  of 
this  same  people  had  "sawn"  Isaiah  "asunder" 
for  uttering  this  lyric  and  other  thought  of  kin- 
dred import.  The  fathers  killed  and  the  children 
canonized.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  you  read: 
"Woe  unto  you  Pharisees,  hypocrites;  ye  build 
the  sepulchers  of  the  prophets  and  garnish  the 
tombs  of  the  righteous.  Ye  are  the  sons  of  them 
that  slew  the  prophets.  Fill  ye  up  then  the 
measure  of  your  fathers."  And  the}^  did  fill  up 
the  measure  of  their  fathers.  Israel  put  Isaiah 
to  death,  and  after  seven  hundred  j^ears  they 
sang  his  songs.  So  stood  that  situation.  The 
Jew  and  the  Roman  put  Christ  to  death,  and 
after  eighteen  hundred  years  Lowell  writes: 

"For  Humanity  sweeps  onward:   where  to-day 
the  martyr  stands. 
On  the  morrow  crouches  Judas  with  the  silver 
in  his  hands; 


PSALMS  NO  T IMPRECA  TOR  Y  291 

Far  in  front  the  cross  stands  ready  and  the 

crackling  fagots  burn, 
While  the  hooting  mob  of  yesterday  in  silent 

awe  return 
To  glean  up  the  scattered  ashes  into  History's 

golden  urn." 

So  stands  the  latter  situation. 

But  my  detour  is  illustrative.  I  have  devel- 
oped this  relating  to  Isaiah  for  purposes  of  com- 
parison. "I  love  a  prophet  of  the  soul,"  says 
Emerson.  To  all  time  David  will  be  the  poet 
of  the  soul  in  the  realm  where  it  "lives  in  God" 
or  hungers  because  of  his  absence.  We  dwell 
alone.  A  few  signs  pass  between  us  and  our 
friends  interpretative  of  some  few  things.  But 
there  is  an  abundance  of  life  from  which  and  to 
which  goes  no  speech  or  sign  save  as  communi- 
cation exists  with  the  All-seeing.  David  is  the 
choir  leader  of  men  as  in  this  "undiscovered 
country"  they  frame  to  consciousness  the  aspira- 
tions and  the  songs  of  the  soul.  David  leads  us 
in  worship  because  he  represents  the  personal 
element  in  human  experience  so  broadly  and  so 
well;  its  height,  but  its  depth  as  well;  its  sun- 
shine and  its  storm;  its  light  and  its  darkness; 
its  hope  and  its  fears;  its  peace  and  its  unrest; 
its  joy  and  its  anguish;  its  possession  of  God  and 


1'.;.'  PSALMS  NO  T  IMPRECA  TOR  Y 

its  wild  beating  against  the  bars  of  eternal  silence 
to  be  let  into  the  Divine  bosom. 

There  were  sins  on  David's  escutcheon?  But 
do  not  these  Psalms  show  it,  confess  it?  Aye, 
do  they  not  show  what  no  history  can  show, 
what  is  behind  all  sins?  Do  they  not  show  the 
struggle  of  a  soul  with  its  torments — show  its 
unrest,  its  upheavals  and  insurrections  against 
the  thralldom  of  sin  and  a  never  dying  struggle 
back  for  the  light,  for  purity  and  for  God? 

Carlyle,  in  his  "Heroes  and  Hero  Worship," 
says:  "Who  is  called  the  man  after  God's  own 
heart?  David,  the  Hebrew  king,  had  fallen 
into  sins  enough — blackest  crimes.  There  was 
no  want  of  sin,  and  therefore  the  unbelievers 
sneer  and  ask,  'Is  this  your  man  according  to 
God's  heart?'  The  sneer,  I  must  say,  seems  to 
me  but  a  shallow  one.  What  are  faults,  what 
are  the  outward  details  of  a  life,  if  the  inner  se- 
cret of  it — the  remorse,  temptations,  the  often 
baffled,  never  ended  struggle  of  it — be  forgotten  ? 
David's  life  and  history,  as  it  is  written  for  us  in 
those  Psalms  of  his,  I  consider  to  be  the  truest 
emblem  ever  given. us  of  a  man's  moral  progress 
and  warfare  here  below.  All  earnest  souls  will 
ever  discern  in   it  the   faithful   struggle   of  an 


PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY  293 

earnest  human  soul  toward  what  is  gooa  and 
best.  Struggle  often  baffled-sore  baffled.dnven 
as  into  entire  wreck ;  yet  a  struggle  never  ended, 
ever  with  tears,  repentance,  true  unconquerable 
purpose  begun  anew." 

The  law  was  always  the  same  that  it  is  now  in 
regard  to  vital  knowledge  of  God:    "The  king^ 
dom  of  heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the  violent 
take  it  by  force."  The  old  prophets  had  to  fight 
their  way  as  do  we.  With  God  there  is  no  respect 
of  persons.   However  God  might  sometimes  give 
those  manifestations  of   himself  that  we  call  mi- 
raculous, they  were  not  the  rule  of  God's  com- 
munication   with    the    prophets  any  more  than 
with  us.     And  in  David's  case  there  is  no  indi- 
cation that  God  dealt  with  him  in  any  but  the 
ordinary  way.     We    find    David's    Psalms  our 
spiritual  life  because  he  went  through   so   many 
of  the  experiences  which  we  must.   Experiences 
so  deeply  human,  we  feel,  put  us   on   the   right 
track   to   the  Divine.     And  because  David  was 
human  so  deeply,  God  could  meet  him  and  bless 
him  as  almost  no  other.     The  greater   we   are, 
the  more  we  can   comprehend   God.     Struggle 
■  is  the  very  element  of  our  greatness.   It  stretches 
^  us  out  and  enlarges  us  in   the   direction   of    our 


294  PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECA TOR Y 

strife.  If  God  hid  his  face  from  David,  by  as 
much  as  David  stretched  forth  his  hands  towards 
him  in  the  darkness,  by  so  much  was  his  soul 
enlarged. 

"The  feeble  hands  and  helpless, 
Groping  blindly  in  the  darkness, 
Touched  God's  right  hand 
In  that  darkness 
And  were  lifted  up  and  strengthened." 

Let  these  old  prophets  and  sacred  bards  be 
brought  nearer  to  our  sympathies.  They  were 
men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves.  They  went 
down  into  the  valley  of  humiliation  as  well  as 
up  on  the  heights  of  illumination.  Were  the}^ 
favored  of  God  ?  They  lived  where  God's  favors 
come.  They  had  a  law  of  life,  and  in  the  long 
run  the  law  asserted  itself  over  all  exceptions. 
They  walked  in  darkness  as  well  as  in  the  light. 
What  made  them  the  appointed  of  God  to  teach 
mankind  was,  that  they  would  walk  whether  it 
was  darkness  or  light.  I  know  of  nothing  more 
pathetic  than  the  spiritual  heart  histories  of  these 
men,  as  set  forth  in  their  lives,  descriptive  of  at- 
tempted communion  with  God. 

That  was  real  life  when  Elijah  wandered  off 
alone  to  Mount  Sinai;  if  haply  he  might  find 
God  there  as  he  thought. he  could  not  in   Pales- 


PSALMS  NO  r  IMPRECA  TOR  Y  295 

tine ;  if  haply  some  Divine  influence  might  linger 
round  the  old  blast-swept  crags  beloved  of  light- 
ning and  storm,  where  God  had  held  communi- 
cation with  Moses.  It  was  a  last  resort  for  him 
in  his  darkness.  It  was  the  despairing  act  of  a 
soul  ready  to  die  if  he  could  not  get  a  clearer 
revelation  of  God.  We  should  look  upon  the 
God  of  the  prophet  and  the  psalmist  as  their 
God  more  as  he  is  our  God.  Sometimes,  perhaps, 
God  appeared  wondrously.  But  even  then  the 
true  account  of  the  matter  seems  to  be  that  such 
appearance  was  in  answer  to  wondrous  effort 
after  him.  God  might  appear  to  us  in  some 
burning  bush  if  we  put  forty  years  of  our  life 
into  almost  unbroken  reaching  out  for  him. 
After  so  many  years  of  effort  to  lay  hold  of  God, 
we  might  be  fit  for  some  special  mission  and 
might  lead  our  host  to  a  promised  land.  If  we 
know  nothing  of  God  on  the  heights  of  his  com- 
munication, it  is  because  we  know  of  no  struggle 
after  him  in  the  depths  of  his  silence.  God  found 
by  persistently  pushing  through  the  darkness 
toward  him,  is  God  found  forever.  Nothing  can 
then  hide  him  from  our  eyes.  If  we  are  in  thick 
darkness  we  know  that  it  is  "his  pavilion  round 
about  him,"  and,  though  our  vision  be   cut   off. 


21)0  PSALMS  NO  T  IMPRECA  TOR  Y 

we  still  trust  because  we  have  found  him  near. 
The  Psalms  show  us  the  highest  strains  of  re- 
joicing in  God.  But  they  come  from  minds  that 
had  sounded  all  possible  depths  of  struggle  and 
doubt.  I  am  not  sure  but  we  may  say  David's 
light  came  because  of  his  darkness.  He  was 
capable  of  perceiving  what  the  light  and  ]oy  of 
God's  salvation  are  because  he  was  capable  of 
such  intensity  of  feeling — capable  of  such  "hor- 
ror of  great  darkness"  in  the  privation  of  light 
and  joy  in  God.  The  darkness  had  some  mean- 
ing to  him  because  he  knew  whose  absence  the 
darkness  betokened.  Then  light  and  peace  came 
out  in  clearer  colors  to  him  because  of  the  mid- 
night gloom  against  which  they  were  projected. 
The  daysprings  of  peace  and  consolation  take 
on  their  most  beauteous  hues  as  they  break  upon 
souls  immersed  in  sorrow  or  despair. 

Cowper  in  some  period  of  depression,  thinking 
God  had  forever  departed  from  him,  wrote: 

"I  consent  that  thou  depart, 
Though  thine  absence  breaks  m}^  heart; 
Go  then  and  forever  too, 
All  is  right  that  thou  wilt  do." 

Against  such  background  what  must  not  have 
been  the  comfort  and  joy  when  he  could  write: 


PSALMS  NOT  IMPRECATORY  297 

"Sometimes  a  light  surprises 
The  Christian  while  he  sings; 
It  is  the  Lord  who  rises 
With  healing  in  his  wings. 
When  comforts  are  declining, 
He  grants  the  soul  again 
A  season  of  clear  shining, 
To  cheer  it  after  rain!" 
'>  .... 

If  we  have  no  rapture  in  the  Divine  life   it   is 

because  the  deprivation  of  it  means   nothing   to 

us,  it  is  because  for  it  we  have  had  no  agony. 


THE    END. 


INDEX. 


Abaddon,  24. 
Abraham,  196. 
Abyssinia,  121. 
Acts  of  Apostles,  153. 
Aesthetics,  25. 
Adam,  235. 
Angelo,  Michael,  26. 
Apocalypse,  9-56. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  247. 
Assyria,  95. 
Atavism,  63. 
Attainder,  136. 

Babel.  220. 

Babylon,  53,  120,  128,  131, 

149. 
Bartol,  Doctor,  144. 
Beast  mark  of,  44,  51. 
Bentham,  60. 
Biographical  History,  173- 

197. 
Bithynia,  35,  46. 
Blackstone.  137. 
Bret  Harte.  227. 
Buckle,  133. 
Bunyan,  189. 

Caesar,  15, 17,  54,  208. 
Canaan,  141,  207. 
Catholic  church,  48,  77. 
Clement,  158-161. 
Comedy,  76. 
Constantine,  152. 
Contemporary  Review.  140. 
Cowper,  75.  296. 
Creation.  248. 
Cvrus.  117.  127. 


David,  137,  279. 
Deuteronomy,  80. 
Drama,  23,  57. 

Eden,  238,  255-278. 
Egypt,  96. 
Elihu,  59-72. 
Elijah,  82. 
Eliphaz,  67. 
Eusebius,  160. 

Fall  of  man,  237. 

Garrison,    William    Lloyd, 

104. 
Genesis,  208,  234. 
Goldsmith,  83. 
Gospel,  114. 
Gospel  of  Peter,  151. 
Green,  historian,  136. 

Hades,  67. 
Hedonism,  60. 
Heresies,  162-165. 
Herodotus,  96. 
Hezekiah,  94,  118. 
History,  173-254. 
Hobbes,  60. 
Hosea,  207. 
Human  suffering,  61. 

Immortality,  65. 
Imprecatory   Psalms,   130- 

149. 
India,  179. 
Irving,  82. 
Isaiah,  78,  93-129,  287-291. 


300 


INDEX 


Jeremiah.  78. 
Job,  57-75,  189-191. 
John,  11,  24-27,  48,  182,  196. 
Jndcjment.  final,  53. 
Juvenal,  48,  82. 
Jehovah.  59. 
Jerusalem,  119-129. 
Jonah,  76-92,  189-191. 
Kingdom  of  God,  16,  18. 
Danciani,  152. 
Lowell,  81,  82. 
Maine's     "Ancient    Law,' 

135. 
Merodach-Beladan,  118. 
Messiah,  oratorio,  110. 
Millennium.  52. 
Milton.  26,  30. 
Morals,  progress  in,  133. 
Moses,  196,  246. 
Myths,  192,  263. 

Nasby,  Petroleum  V.,  81. 
Necho,  96. 
Nero,  154, 167. 
Nineveh,  84-90,  96,  190. 
Noah,  216,  225. 

Oriental  Christ.  179. 
Overcome,  17. 

Paris  Commune,  145. 
Patmos.  15. 

Paul,  65.  89,  150-172,  183. 
Peace  Society.  144. 
Pentateuch.  187,  195. 
Peter,  93,  151. 
Pliny.  34-40.  161. 
Polygamy,  134. 
Poppea.  154. 
Potomac,  Army  of,  145. 
Prodigal  Son,  260. 
Prophets.  76. 
Prosperity  of  Wicked,  69. 
Protestantism.  48.  49. 
Psalmist.  68.  245. 
Psalms.  130-149,  279-297. 
Pyramids,  226. 


Redeemer,  67,  68. 
Renan,  181. 
Resurrection,  53,  184. 
Revelation,  9-56. 
Revised  Version,  10,  118. 
Righteousfiess.  59,  77. 
Roman  Church,  48. 
Roman  empire,  33,*43,  48. 
Roman  law\  142. 

Samson.  193. 

Satan,  59.  73. 

Sayce,  118,  120. 

Schurmann,  Professor,  141. 

Sennacherib,  97. 

Shakespeare,  57. 

Sheol,  67. 

Sin,  275. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  196. 

Smith.  Sydney,  252. 

StrauSiS,  181. 

Suffering,  61. 

Sumner.  Charles.  144. 

Sun,  250. 

Sun  myths,  192. 

Symbolism,  22. 

Tacitus.  161,  167. 
Taine.  26. 
Temptation,  272. 
Tennyson,  56,  123. 
Thayer,  Professor,  151. 
Theory,  63. 
Thoreau,  226. 
Timothy,  166-169. 
Tradition.  152. 
Trajan,  34-40. 
Troas,  183. 
Truth  of  Scripture,  173. 

Utilitarianism,  60. 

Wager  of  battle,  138. 
Washington,  80. 
Wayland,  Francis,  144. 
Whlttier,  102. 
Wordsworth,  278. 


